
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


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BUDDY, MARYLEE, UNCLE JACK, FRED, AND BESS 
DISCOVER NATURE’S TREASURES. 




















Nature-Science Series 


Finding Nature’s Treasures 

.. by .. 


ELLEN SCHULZ QUILLIN 
Director of Science and Nature Study in the 
Public Schools, and Director of the 
Witte Memorial Museum, 

San Antonio, Texas 


CHARLES H. GABLE 

Teacher of Science in the Elementary School, Alamo 
Heights, Texas; formerly entomologist in 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture 


Revision edited by Edna V. jMcNeil, M.A. 

Teacher of Science in R. W. Emerson 
Junior School, San Antonio, Texas 

Illustrations by 

ELIZABETH RHODES and JACK McGUIRE 
* 


THE SOUTHWEST PRESS 

DALLAS, TEXAS 



Q H +2 
.Qs 

)°IS3 


Copyright, 1931 
Revised, 1933 

THE SOUTHWEST PRESS, Inc. 

° / W) H;-) 


unk 22.- 73S\0 



PREFACE 


Birds, plants, trees, insects, soil, clouds, and stars sur¬ 
round us all our lives. They belong to rich and poor, to 
the man living in the tropics, or in the frozen north. 
Once our minds are opened to some of the fascinating 
things that science has found out about them, once we 
have learned to look at them with seeing eyes, during all 
the rest of life, they will be a source of endless delight. 
They become a living treasure, which time only increases, 
and misfortune never destroys. 

Whatever studies a child may eventually pursue, no 
hours can be spent more profitably than learning the 
absorbing ways of the everyday world of Nature which 
surrounds him. When the habit of observation is ac¬ 
quired, education is assured. The purpose of this book 
is to arouse an intelligent curiosity about this world of 
Nature—to give some of its most significant and dra¬ 
matic facts, some main principles which govern its be¬ 
ing. But at the same time, it has been so conceived that 
turning from this book, almost without being conscious 
of how it has happened, the child forever after will see 
Nature through new and more understanding eyes. The 
authors have found by years of teaching and reading 
nature stories to children, that nothing appeals to their 
imagination more than the real life that blooms, flows, 


IV 


PREFACE 


flashes, creeps, and moves about them day and night. 
The fascination of the subject itself, the quick, vivid 
rewards that come with knowing , are a tremendous 
stimulus in the direction of all education. 

The stories have been developed in elementary schools. 
Pedagogical approach and scientific accuracy have had 
equal consideration by the authors. They considered the 
children for whom they were writing as much as the 
subjects to be written about. It will be readily seen that 
they have not fully treated from a scientific standpoint 
all the topics introduced. They have written only the 
concepts that the child mind can easily grasp about a 
subject. A large museum directed by one of the authors, 
and the resources of Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, 
Texas, outstanding zoological and botanical garden of 
the South, made possible the completeness and accuracy 
of the book. 

The illustrations were made from real life. The artists 
worked with the authors, so that the stories and pictures 
were constructed as units. 

The vocabulary has been checked by the Thorndike 
Word List. Explanations of such scientific words as 
were necessary have been made in the stories when 
needed. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Buddy, Marylee, Uncle Jack, Fred, and Bess 

Discover Nature’s Treasures - - - - Frontispiece 

Preface ---------------- iii 

Uncle Jack Plans a Treasure Hunt.1 

Thin Wings - -- -- -- --.5 

Buddy Learns a Lesson . ... . 7 

Ants Walking with Parasols - -- -- -- -13 

The Nest of the Parasol Ants - -- -- -- -16 
Mr. Cricket’s Queer Song - -- -- -- --20 

The Dragon Fly . .. ---23 

Queer Water Babies - -- -. --26 

A Treasure with a Horn - -- -- -- -- 29 

A House of Silk - -- -- -- -- -- -34 

Traveling Butterflies - -- -- -- -- -38 

Along the Creek - -- -- -- -- -- --43 

A Fighting Crawfish - -- -- -- -- -45 

A Sunfish Guarding His Nest - -- -- -- -49 
Tadpole to Bullfrog - -- -- -- -- --53 

Wiggle-tails - -- -- -- -- -- -- 58 

Little Creatures with Many Legs - -- -- --63 

Giving a Spider its Dinner -.---65 

Marylee Finds Danger - ---------69 

A Mother Scorpion - -- -- -- -- --72 

A Hundred Pairs of Legs .----76 

An Animal in a Box House - -- -- -- --80 
A Fighting Lizard ----------- 84 


v 


























VI 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Queer Animals - -- -- -- -- -- --89 

A Pocket Full of Babies - -- -- -- -- -91 

An Adventure with a Skunk - -- -- -- -97 

A Pet in a Shell - -- -- -- -- -- - 101 

The Champion Digger - -- -- -- -- - 105 

Bird’s Nest or What? - -- -- -- -- - 109 

The Whistler ------------- 113 

A Flying Mammal - -- -- -- -- -- 116 

Feathered Flights - -- -- -- -- -- - 121 

A Big-headed Fisherman - -- -- -- -- 123 

Birds That Eat as They Fly -------- 127 

Busy Birds - -- -- -- -- -- -- 131 

A Bird That Fooled the Children ------- 136 

A Bird That Is a Butcher - -- -- -- -- 141 

A Fight in the Air - -- -- -- -- -- 144 

Father Verdin Has His Own Nest ------ 149 

Honk! Honk! Honk! - ---------- 152 

From Seed to Tree -.- - - - - 155 

Flowers and Their Friends -------- 157 

Under a Live Oak Tree - -- -- -- -- - 161 

Buddy Fights a Weed - -- -- -- -- - 165 

How Seeds Travel - -- -- -- -- -- 169 

What Is a Potato ? - -- -- -- -- -- 172 

From Sap to Sugar - -- -- -- -- -- 175 

A Dress Made of Wood - -- -- -- -- - 178 

Bits of Rock and Drops of Water - -- -- -- - 181 

Dishes of Clay - -- -- -- -- -- -- 183 

Stories Written on Rocks - -- -- -- -- 187 

Water Floating in the Air - -- -- -- -- 190 

Out in Star Land - --.___ 195 

Living on the Moon - -- -- -- -- -- 197 

Shooting Stars - -- -- -- -- -- - 201 

Finding the North Star - -- -- -- -- - 204 

Index .- 209 




































Nature never did betray , 

The heart that loved her; His her privilege , 

Through all the years of this our life , to lead 
From joy to joy. 


William Wordsworth 












UNCLE JACK PLANS A TREASURE HUNT 


“How are all your little friends of the creek ?” asked 
Uncle Jack, as he took a chair on the front porch after 
dinner. He had come to live with Buddy and Marylee. 
They were very happy, for they always had good times 
with him when he had come before on short visits. He 
knew so much about everything. He was ever ready to 
play with them and to answer their questions. 

“Have you caught any snapping turtles lately, Buddy?” 
he asked. 

“Yes, Uncle Jack, Marylee and I caught a big one not 
long ago,” answered Buddy. “Mother said it must have 
weighed twenty-five pounds. We saw it in the shallow 
water. I caught it by the tail, and Mother and Marylee 
helped me get it out on the bank. We tied a string around 
it and dragged it up to the house on its back. When we 
let it go, it turned over and went back to the creek.” 

“I wish you had seen it stretch out its neck and push 
its head against the ground until it turned over,” said 
Marylee. “That neck was about a foot long. Let’s go 
to the creek soon; maybe we can find him again.” 

“Yes, let’s do,” added Buddy, “and there are so many 
other things I wish you would tell me about—spiders, 
snakes, insects, birds, and all kinds of things.” 

“Well, let’s plan a treasure hunt,” suggested Uncle 
1 


2 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 






































































































































FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


3 


Jack. “We shall call every interesting thing we find a 
treasure.” 

“Fine!” exclaimed Buddy. 

“Oh, Mother,” added Marylee, “will you go with us?” 

“No, I shall let Uncle Jack take my place tomorrow,” 
said Mother. “I have been out with you so often in the 
last few days. Uncle Jack has come to be with us for a 
long time, and he knows much more than I do about the 
things you will find.” 

“Uncle Jack, may we take Fred and Bess with us?” 
asked Buddy. “Fred is my chum, and Bess plays with 
Marylee almost every day.” 

“Do you think we could take enough lunch for all of 
us?” asked Uncle Jack, smiling. 

“Fred and Bess together don't eat as much as Buddy,” 
said Marylee. 

“Oh, they do, too,” said Buddy. “I don't eat so much.” 

“Run along and ask them if they will go,” interrupted 
Mother. “Uncle Jack was only teasing.” 





THIN WINGS 


And there's never a leaf nor blade too mean 
To be some happy creature's palace. 


J. R. Lowell 










BUDDY LEARNS A LESSON 


“Are you ready, little treasure hunters?” called Uncle 
Jack, as he closed the door of his automobile upon them. 

“Yes,” cried the children together, as they started. 
They rode for some miles until they came to the woods. 
Then they parked the car under a tree, and all started 
walking. Buddy ran ahead. 

“I've found the first treasure,” shouted Buddy. 

The other children began to run toward him. They 
saw him pick up a long stick. He commenced to poke at 
something up in a tree. 

“You had better be careful how you poke things,” 
called Uncle Jack; but Buddy did not hear him. Then 
they saw him drop the stick. He jumped back and began 
to run. He was slapping his head and face. 

“Ow! Ow! Ouch! Ouch!” he cried as he ran this way 
and that, waving his arms. 

“Run for the brush! Run for the brush!” called Uncle 
Jack. Into the brush he went like a rabbit. They could 
hear his shirt tear as it caught on a thorn. But he did 
not stop. 

“What—what is the matter with him?” asked Bess. 
She was so frightened that she could hardly talk. 

“Wasps are after him,” said Uncle Jack. “He punched 
a wasps' nest.” 


7 


8 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


They saw Buddy stick his head out of the brush and 
look around. Soon he came walking on his toes as though 
he were afraid some one would hear him. He came to 
them, holding one side of his face with one hand, and 
rubbing the back of his ear with the other hand. Poor 
Buddy looked as if he wanted to cry, but he would not. 

“What happened, Buddy?” Marylee asked. 

“About a million wasps tried to sting me, and some of 
them did,” answered Buddy. “I found their nest in that 
tree. I thought that I would just give it a poke and see 
what they would do.” 

“Did you find out?” asked Uncle Jack, with a twinkle 
in his eye. 

“Yes, I did,” said Buddy. “And it was more than I 
wanted to know.” 

“Let's go over and see your wasps' nest,” laughed 
Uncle Jack. 

“You can if you want to,” replied Buddy. “But I have 
seen all I want to see of it.” 

“Buddy, we all have to learn to be careful what we do 
to other people, even if they are only the little people of 
the fields. If a man came along with a great pole and 
poked into the windows of your house, what would 
you do?” 

“I would try to make him stop.” 

“Of course you would, Buddy. And so would Fred or 
anyone else. That is just what the wasps were doing. 
Don't you see that you were breaking their house? You 
were even killing their babies.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


9 



“I didn't think of it that way, Uncle Jack. I suppose 
I deserved to be stung." 

“They won't hurt you unless you first hurt them. Let's 
go over now and see them." 

Uncle Jack walked slowly over to the tree. Fred, Bess, 
and Marylee followed him, but Buddy was last this time. 

“Stand very quietly," said Uncle Jack. “Do not move, 
and the wasps will not hurt you." 

The children looked into the tree, and there they saw 
the nest. “What a queer looking nest that is!" said Bess. 
“It looks like a piece of gray honeycomb hung upside 
down by a stem." 








10 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“See all of those wasps hanging on the nest and look¬ 
ing right at us,” added Fred. 

“They are watching to see if we are going to do as 
Buddy did,” said Uncle Jack. “They are ready to go on 
the warpath again, just as they did when they went after 
Buddy. Only a few kinds of insects feed and take care 
of their babies the way wasps do. Many insects lay their 
eggs in the ground or on some plant, and then forget all 
about them. When the babies hatch out of the eggs, they 
have to find their own food and look out for themselves. 
When little boys poke them with sticks, they do not have 
anyone to fight for them as the baby wasps do.” 

“Isn't this a part of their nest?” asked Fred, as he 
picked up something. 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “Buddy has broken it off. 
Isn't that too bad?” 

“I'm sorry,” said Buddy. “But it is a queer-looking 
piece. What is the nest made of, Uncle Jack? The walls 
around the holes are as thin as paper.” 

“They are made of paper,” he answered. 

“What! Real paper like in a book?” asked Bess. 

“Yes. Much of our paper is made of wood taken from 
trees. It is hard to believe that your book was once a 
part of a great tree. You will learn the story of how 
books are made from trees when you are older.” 

“But tell us now how these wasps make their paper, 
Uncle Jack.” 

“The wasp flies to an old post or log where the wood 
is not hard. She scrapes off some of the soft wood with 
her strong, sharp jaws. She chews the wood in her mouth 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


11 


the way you chew gum. When it is soft, the wasp uses 
it to build the nest. Of course, the paper is not smooth 
and white like the paper in your book, but it does make 
the walls of the little rooms for her babies.” 

“Tell us about the babies,” begged Bess. 

“They do not look like Mother Wasp,” continued Uncle 
Jack. “They are just fat, little, white grubs. Here is one. 
Look down at the bottom of this tiny open room.” Uncle 
Jack held the piece of nest so they could see into it. “They 
have no legs nor wings. They do not need them, because 
each baby stays in its own room all of the time. The big 
wasps bring them food.” 

“What kind of food do the big wasps give them?” 
asked Fred. 

“The old wasps feed the babied caterpillars,” replied 
Uncle Jack. “When the old wasp finds a caterpillar, she 
kills it and chews it, until it is a little round ball which 
she can easily carry to the nest. Other wasps at the nest 
take part of the little ball from the one which brought it, 
and feed it to the babies.” 

“Do the babies grow very fast?” asked Marylee. 

“Yes, they do,” replied Uncle Jack. “When the baby 
grows so large that it almost fills the room, it covers the 
open end of the room with a kind of paper. The paper is 
almost like water when it comes from the baby's mouth, 
but it quickly turns white and strong.” 

“That is wonderful,” declared Bess. 

“The little white baby wasp,” continued Uncle Jack, 
“which does not have either wings or legs, shuts itself 
up. So it gets no more food. In a few days it comes out 


12 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


of the room with legs and wings and head and eyes and 
stinger, like all the other big wasps. I wish I could ex¬ 
plain to you how the baby wasp does it. All I can tell 
you is that soon after the baby shuts itself in the room, 
it goes to sleep. Slowly the baby changes so that it looks 
more like the big wasps. But it is still white, and the 
legs and wings are inside its skin, so the baby wasp can¬ 
not use them.” 

“Since it looks so different from a baby wasp, what is 
it called?” asked Fred. 

“I am glad you asked that question, Fred. I shall give 
you three new words to learn. While the baby wasp is 
eating and growing, we call it a larva. After it goes to 
sleep and is changing to a grown-up wasp, it becomes a 
pupa. The skin of the'pupa turns darker and splits down 
the back after a few more days. The full-grown wasp 
then crawls out of the skin and cuts a hole in the end of 
the paper room so that it can get out. Now it is like the 
other wasps, and is called an adult.” 

“I am going to try to remember all that Uncle Jack 
has told us about wasps,” said Marylee. 

“I know that I will always remember not to poke a 
nest of theirs,” declared Buddy, as he rubbed his face, 
which was swollen where the wasps had stung him. 


ANTS WALKING WITH PARASOLS 


“Here are some ants with parasols,” called Bess. 

They all ran to Bess and Knelt down to see the little 
ants. The ants had made a clean smooth path through 
the grass. Each one was holding in its jaws a tiny piece 
of green leaf. It spread over the ant's back like a parasol. 

“I wonder where they get the leaves,” said Fred. “Some 
of them are going the other way without any. Come on, 
Buddy, let's follow their trail.'' 

The children followed the little ants to a bush. There 
they saw a queer sight. Ants were all over the bush. 
They were cutting off pieces of leaves with their sharp 
scissor-like jaws. When the piece was almost off, the ant 
crawled out on it. 

“Look at that crazy ant,'' said Marylee, pointing to 
one. “When the leaf falls, the ant will fall, too.'' 

“The ant knows what it is doing,'' said Uncle Jack. 

The ant took a last snip. The piece of leaf with the 
ant upon it floated down to the ground. Then the ant 
picked up the leaf and, holding it over its head and back, 
started off along the path. 

“Well, that ant must be too lazy to crawl down to the 
ground,'' said Buddy. 

“I think that it is smart,'' added Fred. “That is a 
quick, easy way to get down.'' 

13 


14 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 



The children followed the loaded ants back along the 
path until they came to a big pile of earth. Here the 
ants were going through a hole and carrying the green 
pieces. 

“What do they do with the leaves on the inside?” 
asked Buddy. 

“They make gardens with them,” said Uncle Jack. 

“Real gardens, Uncle Jack?” asked Bess. 

“Yes, they dig out a big room in the ground, big for 
such little creatures to make. Sometimes it is two feet 
long, and four or five inches from top to bottom. The 
ants chew the leaves until they are soft and wet. Then 
they cover the floor with these soft wet leaves and plant 
their gardens in them.” 

“Do you mean they plant beets, carrots, lettuce, and 
cabbage?” asked Mary lee. 

“No, no,” laughed Uncle Jack, “they plant fungus.” 













FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


15 


“I never heard of fungus before,” said Buddy. 

“Do you know what moss is?” Uncle Jack asked them. 

“I do,” said Bess. “It is green and it grows on wet, 
shady ground. Sometimes it grows on the sides of trees 
and logs, and makes them look green.” 

“That is right, Bess,” said Uncle Jack. “The fungus 
that the ants plant is very much like moss. Moss does 
not need the sunlight. But fungus does not need light at 
all. It will grow down in the dark garden rooms of the 
ants. The fungus plants are very much smaller than the 
plants of moss. The stems are white and tender. The 
ants eat them and feed them to their babies.” 






THE NEST OF THE PARASOL ANTS 


“I wish we could watch the ants at work inside of their 
nest/’ remarked Marylee, as they stood around a nest of 
parasol ants, and watched the little insects carry bits 
of green leaves down into the ground. 

“It would be very interesting,” said Uncle Jack. “You 
would enjoy seeing the ants caring for their babies.” 

“Oh, Uncle Jack, tell us about the baby ants/’ begged 
both of the girls. 

“Ants lay eggs as most of the other insects do,” began 
Uncle Jack. “These ants keep their eggs in special rooms 
where it is damp and warm enough to make the eggs 
hatch into tiny ants. These ant babies are then carried 
to another room, which we may call the nursery.” 

“How do the ants carry the babies?” asked Marylee. 
“Do they have baskets or baby buggies?” 

“I know how they carry them,” said Fred. “I lifted 
up a stone one day and saw the ants carry away their 
babies. Of course, they did not have baskets or baby 
buggies. They did not carry them in their arms the way 
people carry babies, either. They carried them in their 
jaws, almost the way a mother cat carries her kitten.” 

“You are right, Fred,” agreed Uncle Jack. “The jaws 
of the large ants are very sharp, but the ants carry their 
babies so gently that they are not hurt. The nurse ants 
16 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


17 


feed and take care of the babies in the nursery. Who 
remembers what we call an insect baby while it is eating 
and growing?” 

“I do! I do!” cried Buddy, before the others could 
answer. “It is called a larva. You told us that when we 
talked about the baby wasps.” 

Uncle Jack then continued, “The mother ant stays 
down in the nest all of the time and is very busy laying 
eggs. She is called the Queen. Each nest has one Mother 
Queen. The worker ants, which you see, are only as 
large around as the lead in your pencil, but the Queen 
is nearly as large as a shelled peanut. At certain times 
of the year a large number of king ants and queen ants 
hatch out in the nest. All of these young kings and 
queens have wings. They soon leave the old nest and fly 
away. Each queen flies as far as she can, then she comes 
down to the ground. She hunts a good place for a nest 
of her own. That is the only time she will ever fly. She 
will never need her wings again; so she breaks them off 
with her legs.” 

“Doesn’t it hurt her when she does that?” asked 
Marylee. 

“I don’t think it hurts her any more than it hurts 
a tree when its leaves fall off in the autumn,” replied 
Uncle Jack. “The wings are almost ready to come loose, 
because she is through with them. Now, if the new queen 
cannot find a little cave already made under a stone, she 
digs a round hole in the ground. When her new nest is 
ready for her to live in, she goes inside and fills the door¬ 
way with earth.” 


18 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Why does she fill the doorway?” Buddy asked. 

“She does this so that no enemy can come in to kill her,” 
Uncle Jack replied. 

“If she fills the doorway with earth, how can she get 
out again?” asked Fred. 

“She doesn’t come out again,” Uncle Jack explained. 
“She stays in that nest as long as she lives. She never 
comes outside even for a walk.” 

“What does she do down in that hole all by herself?” 
Bess wanted to know. 

“The first thing she does is to lay some tiny round 
eggs,” answered Uncle Jack. “They stick together in a 
bunch, so that she can pick them up and carry them in 
her jaws when she wishes. After the eggs hatch, she 
feeds and cares for the babies.” 

“What does she feed them and what does she, herself, 
eat?” demanded Fred. “You did not say that she made 
a fungus garden.” 

“She eats nothing while her first babies are growing,” 
replied Uncle Jack. “She feeds them food from her 
mouth, which is almost like water. But it is good enough 
to keep the babies alive until they become real worker 
ants. These young workers dig open the doorway and 
start a fungus garden. The queen then has nothing to 
worry about. She will have plenty to eat for herself 
and her babies, because her children are all good workers. 
That is the way the queen of the parasol ants starts her 
new nest.” 

“What a wonderful story, Uncle Jack!” said Bess. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


19 


“Do you think we can find any other treasures as inter- 
esting?” 

“Yes, of course you can, if you keep your eyes open,” 
Uncle Jack answered. 


MR. CRICKET'S QUEER SONG 


Something was chirping in the grasses. “What is 
that?” asked Buddy. 

“I know!” exclaimed Bess. “That is a cricket singing 
his song. I thought crickets sang only at night.” 

“They do most of the time,” explained Uncle Jack. 
“Sometimes they are so happy that they come out of their 
houses and sing in the daytime. Perhaps you may get 
close enough to see how this one sings.”* 

“Let's see if we can find him,” said Fred. 

“I think he is over there in that open place among the 
trees,” Uncle Jack added. “Do you see that stone with 
the grass around it? I believe Mr. Cricket has his house 
under it. Let us walk carefully and not whisper nor 
make any noise.” 

Mr. Cricket did not hear them coming. He sang a 
little, then he rested a bit. At last they came very near. 
There they saw black Mr. Cricket standing in front of 
his door, a little hole under the stone. Mr. Cricket was 
raising his wings and rubbing the backs of them to¬ 
gether. This made the singing noise they heard. 

It was so funny to see Mr. Cricket rubbing his wings 
to make music that Bess forgot that she was not to make 
any noise. She laughed aloud. Mr. Cricket heard her 
20 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


21 



and stopped his music. He looked up and saw the children 
peeping at him. Then he darted into his house under 
the stone. 

“There, you have scared him away. Girls never do 
keep quiet, anyway,” said Fred. 

“I didn’t mean to,” said Bess. “But he did look so 
funny rubbing his wings to make music.” 

“Mr. Cricket can’t sing any other way,” said Uncle 
Jack. “He can’t sing with his mouth the way you do. 
So he sings by moving his wings.” 

“I never heard before of anything singing with its 
wings,” interrupted Buddy. 
















22 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Well, IT1 tell you how he does it,” continued Uncle 
Jack. “On the back of each wing is a rough place. When 
Mr. Cricket rubs the backs of his wings together, the two 
rough places rub against each other and make a sound. 
That sound is the music you hear.” 

“Do you think that we could lift up the stone and 
catch him?” 

“Yes, you could catch him, Buddy, but you would ruin 
his home if you did that. He worked hard to dig that 
hole. Just think how frightened he would be. He does 
not hurt anyone out here. He just eats the grass and 
sings happily. Now, if he came into your house, you 
would not like him because he might eat a hole in your 
clothes.” 

“Do crickets eat clothes?” 

“Yes, when they get into the house. But the fields are 
the homes of these little people and I do not like to 
frighten them here. Let's leave Mr. Cricket now and hunt 
for another treasure.” 

So away they went leaving Mr. Cricket safe and 
happy. 


THE DRAGON FLY 


“Look out! Buddy! There comes a devil's darning 
needle!" cried Marylee. Uncle Jack and the children had 
come to the little creek running through the fields. A 
large insect with a long body and four long wings was 
flying above the water. 

“It will not hurt you," called Uncle Jack. 

“But won't that devil's darning needle sew up our 
ears if we stay here?" asked Marylee. 

“Of course, it will not do that, Marylee," said Uncle 
Jack, laughing. “I know that many children say these 
pretty insects will sew up the ears of bad boys and girls, 
but that is just a fairy story. These insects are very 
good friends of ours, and I don't like to call them devil's 
darning needles. Dragon Fly is the much better name." 

“Don't they feed snakes and doctor them when they 
are sick?" asked Fred. 

“Oh, no, they don't do that," said Uncle Jack. “They 
are busy nearly all the time flying about and catching 
mosquitoes, flies, and other insects that are not good 
friends of ours." 

“Then they must be catching little insects when they 
dart this way and that," said Buddy. 

“There is another one," cried Marylee. “It has spots 
23 


24 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 



on its wings. I think they are beautiful, now that I 
know they will not hurt us.” 

“They are very beautiful insects,” said Uncle Jack, 
“and so many different kinds. Some have green bodies, 
and wings that you can see through. Others have black 
and white spots on their wings.” 

“There goes one now flying down ^nd touching the 
water,” said Marylee. “Is it getting a drink of water?” 

“They do not drink water,” replied Uncle Jack. “That 
is Mother Dragon Fly. She touches the water with her 
tail, and every time that she touches it, she lays an egg. 
The egg sinks to the bottom of the water.” 


























FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


25 



“Why does she lay her eggs in water?” asked Bess. 
“When the baby dragon flies hatch out of the eggs, won’t 
they drown?” 

“No, because they get air from the water,” explained 
Uncle Jack. “There are bubbles of air in the water, so 
tiny you cannot see them. The baby dragon fly takes 
them into its body. That is the way it breathes, and so 
it does not drown.” 

“Do they live on the bottom of the creek all the time 
they are babies?” asked Fred. 

“Yes. When one is ready to change into a dragon fly 
with wings, it crawls up out of the water and hangs to 
a weed or grass stem. The skin splits down its back, and 
the new dragon fly crawls out of its baby clothes and 
flies away.” 

“That is a queer way to live,” said Buddy. “While 
they are babies, they stay under the water like fish. 
Then, when they are grown, they fly and catch insects in 
the air like birds.” 




QUEER WATER BABIES 

“Uncle Jack, what is this thing? Will it bite me? Is 
it poisonous?” cried Buddy. Buddy had stopped by an 
old stump and was looking among some weeds. “Do 
hurry,” he called. “I don't want it to get away, but I am 
afraid to pick it up. It has big wings, and it has great 
long horns sticking out in front of its head. They look 
like pincers.” 

Uncle Jack and the other children came quickly to 
see the strange thing Buddy had found. 

When Marylee saw it, she jumped back and cried, 
“Oh! Don't let it bite me! What can it be, Uncle Jack?” 

Uncle Jack reached down and quickly picked it up. 
“This is a queer treasure, but it cannot hurt you,” he 
said. “I am glad that you have learned not to pick up 
things until you know what they are. How many legs 
does this creature have?” 

“I can see six,” answered Fred. 

“We call a creature with six legs an insect,” said 
Uncle Jack. “This insect is a Dobson Fly. I know that 
this is Mr. Dobson Fly, because he has these long horns 
that are like pincers. Mrs. Dobson Fly does not have 
them. But he cannot pinch hard enough to hurt. See, 
I can put my finger into his pincers and he does not hurt 
me at all. But his babies have real pincers and they can 
26 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


27 



pinch so hard that I am very careful, when I pick them 
up, to hold them in such a way that they cannot hurt 
me. ,> 

“Where can we find one of his babies?” asked Marylee. 

“The babies live in the water like the babies of the 
dragon fly. They like to hide under the stones. You may 
find one if you look under these that lie along the edge 
of the water.” 

Buddy and Fred began to turn over the stones. Soon 
Marylee asked, “Uncle Jack, what is this ugly thing? 
Its back is the color of mud. It is long and flat, with legs 
all along its body.” 











28 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“That is the baby dobson fly we are looking for,” said 
Uncle Jack, when he saw it. He reached down to pick 
it up, but he was careful to take hold of it just back of 
its head. The baby dobson fly could not turn around and 
pinch him with its big jaws. But how hard it did try! 

“How long does it take a baby dobson fly to grow up?” 
asked Marylee. 

“Some of them live in the water like this one for al¬ 
most three years before they get their wings and are 
grown-up dobson flies,” replied Uncle Jack. 

“They come from eggs, don't they?” asked Buddy. 
“What are they like?” 

“Yonder are some on those leaves hanging over the 
water,” said Uncle Jack, as he pointed to some leaves 
near Marylee. 

“I don't see any eggs here,” said Marylee. “There are 
some white spots on the leaves, but nothing else.” 

“That white stuff is a cover for the eggs,” explained 
Uncle Jack. “The mother dobson fly lays about two thou¬ 
sand eggs. When the eggs hatch, the tiny insects drop 
into the water. They have to catch their own food and 
keep away from hungry fish that would eat them.” 

“Are you going to let both of them go now?” asked 
Bess. 

“Yes, of course, we will turn them loose,” said Uncle 
Jack. “They do not harm us, and we should let them 
live and be as happy as they can.” 

Uncle Jack put the young one back into the water, 
and turned the big dobson fly loose in the air. 


A TREASURE WITH A HORN 


“Uncle Jack! Where are you?” called Marylee. 

“Here I am,” he answered. He saw she had something 
in her hand. “Have you found another treasure?” 

“Yes,” said Marylee, as she came up to him. “I was 
looking at that vine over there, and saw that something 
had been eating the leaves. I tried to find what had 
eaten them, and I saw this big green worm with a horn 
on its tail. What can it be?” 

“That is a fine treasure,” answered Uncle Jack, as 
he took the leaf with Marylee’s treasure upon it. “But 
are you sure that it is a worm?” 

“I think that it is,” she answered. “We always call 
things worms that crawl like this one does.” 

“I know that many people call them worms, but they 
are not worms,” said Uncle Jack. “We should learn to 
call things by their right names.” 

“What is the right name for it?” asked Bess, who had 
come to see what Marylee had found. 

“I think I know now,” said Marylee. “Last year 
Mother told us that the baby swallow-tail butterfly was 
a big caterpillar. Is this a caterpillar?” 

“Yes,” answered Uncle Jack, “but this one is not a 
baby butterfly. It is a baby moth. Both baby moths and 
baby butterflies are called caterpillars.” 

29 


30 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Then what is a worm?” asked Fred. 

“A fishworm or earthworm is a real worm,” answered 
Uncle Jack. 

“But I want to know more about my caterpillar,” ex¬ 
claimed Marylee. 

Uncle Jack smiled and said, “All right, what do you 
want to know first?” 

“I want to know if that big horn on its tail has poison 
in it. I am afraid of it.” 

“Many people are afraid of the horn,” said Uncle 
Jack. “But there is no poison in it. This caterpillar can¬ 
not hurt you. Touch the horn with your finger.” 

Marylee obeyed. The horn was hard, but it was not 
sharp. It did not hurt. 

“What are these funny spots on the sides of the cater¬ 
pillar?” asked Buddy. 

“Those are little holes,” said Uncle Jack. “The cater¬ 
pillar does not breathe through a nose the way we do, 
but it gets air through those holes.” 

“Does it have ribs?” asked Marylee. 

“No, it doesn’t have ribs nor any bones,” answered 
Uncle Jack. “Insects do not have anything like bones 
inside their bodies. The caterpillars have hard skins and 
muscles to hold their bodies in shape. When they grow 
too big for their old skins, they throw them off and get 
new ones.” 

“Why do they do that?” asked Marylee. 

“The skin of the caterpillar does not grow any more 
than Buddy’s trousers grow,” replied Uncle Jack. “When 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


31 



Buddy grows too big for his trousers, he gets new ones. 
Don’t you, Buddy?” 

“Yes,” answered Buddy. 

“That is just what the caterpillar does,” continued 
Uncle Jack. “But it must make its own new clothes. 
When it gets too big for its old skin, it grows a new one. 
The old one splits down the back, and the caterpillar 
crawls out in his new skin. 

“What a queer way to get new clothes!” exclaimed 
Marylee. 

“Does this caterpillar go to sleep before it becomes a 





32 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


moth?” asked Buddy. “Mother told us that is the way 
the caterpillar of the swallow-tail butterfly does.” 

“Yes, this caterpillar will go to sleep, too,” answered 
Uncle Jack. “First, it will dig down into the ground and 
make a little room for itself. It will then turn into a 
dark brown pupa with a handle like a jug.” 

“Why does it have a handle?” asked Marylee. “Does 
it want someone to carry it around?” 

“No,” replied Uncle Jack. “That is not a real handle, 
but there inside is its long mouth.” 

“What a queer place for a mouth,” said Marylee. “It 
must be longer than the mouth of a butterfly.” 

“It is longer,” said Uncle Jack. “When you look at 
the pupa you can see the baby wings under the brown 
shell. You can see the eyes, too. The pupa stays in the 
little room all winter. In the spring, it changes into a 
beautiful moth and comes out. Now, Buddy, can you 
tell all the things that a moth is, while it is a baby?” 

“I think that I can, Uncle Jack,” answered Buddy. 
“A moth lays eggs. Baby caterpillars hatch out of the 
eggs. The babies grow and keep changing their skins 
until they become big caterpillars. The big caterpillars 
change into pupas, and pupas become moths.” 

“That is well told,” said Uncle Jack. 

“What kind of a moth will this caterpillar be?” asked 
Marylee. 

“It will be a humming-bird moth, or as it is sometimes 
called, a hawk moth.” 

“Do you mean a moth like those that come to our 
honeysuckle and look like humming birds?” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


33 



“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “All the caterpillars that have 
horns like this one turn into humming-bird moths. Would 
you like to keep this caterpillar?” 

“Yes, I would,” said Buddy. “But how can I do it?” 

“Take it home with you, and get a glass jar. Put some 
earth in the bottom of the jar, then the caterpillar on 
the earth. There is a vine just like this one growing by 
the creek near the house. You must get fresh leaves 
from that vine every day and feed them to the cater¬ 
pillar until it goes down into the earth. The moth will 
not come out of the pupa until late this summer, or early 
next spring.” 






A HOUSE OF SILK 


“Whew! What a big caterpillar! Uncle Jack! Mary- 
lee! Come and see it,” called Buddy, as he was looking 
into a bush. Of course, Uncle Jack and the other chil¬ 
dren went running to him. 

“Where is it?” asked Marylee, when she came to the 
bush. 

“It is right on that branch. Can’t you see it?” asked 
Buddy. 

“Oh! That’s the largest caterpillar I ever saw! Why, 
it is as long as my hand!” said Marylee, when she saw it. 
“What are those funny things sticking up on its back? 
They look like warts, but they are too long and stick up 
too high to be warts. See those black hairs, too. They 
look like spines. Isn’t it ugly?” 

“What you say look like warts are called tubercles,” 
said Uncle Jack. “That is such a long, hard word that 
we shall call them warts until you are older.” 

“The warts are in rows,” said Bess. “Those big ones 
on the front are red, and there are yellow ones, too.” 

“The rows on the sides are blue,” said Marylee. “What 
kind of moth will this caterpillar make, Uncle Jack?” 

“It is called the Cecropia moth,” replied Uncle Jack. 
“That is not a very easy word, but I hope you can re¬ 
member it.” 


34 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


35 



"It must be a big moth, because the caterpillar is so 
big,” said Fred. 

“Yes, it is one of the largest and prettiest moths that 
lives here. It is almost as large as your two hands. I 
will show you a picture of it when we go back to the 
house. ,, 

“What is the caterpillar trying to do now?” asked 
Marylee. “It is moving its head around and around and 
back and forth.” 

“I see what it is doing,” said Buddy. “It is making 
silk. Is it going to make a web like a spider does?” 








36 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Caterpillars do not make a web like the spider’s 
web,” replied Uncle Jack. “But the Cecropia builds a 
house of silk to live in when it is a pupa. But it does 
not go down into the ground like the humming-bird cater¬ 
pillar does. The house, where the Cecropia pupa lives 
while it is changing from a caterpillar into a moth, is 
called a cocoon.” 

“Where does it get the silk?” asked Marylee. 

“It comes from a tiny hole in its lower lip,” replied 
Uncle Jack. “Every time that it moves its head, it makes 
more silk. It will keep on making silk until the cocoon 
is finished. Then it will go to sleep inside.” 

“What is that big thing on this branch?” asked Buddy. 
He had gone around to the other side of the bush to see 
if he could find some more caterpillars. 

“That is a Cecropia cocoon all finished,” said Uncle 
Jack, when he looked at what Buddy had found. “WeTl 
cut it open when I get out my knife.” 

Uncle Jack broke off the little branch that had the 
cocoon fastened to it. 

“Why do you need your knife?” asked Marylee. “Can’t 
you tear open the cocoon with your fingers?” 

“No, not with my fingers,” said Uncle Jack. “The 
cocoon is as strong as silk cloth.” 

Uncle Jack began to cut the silk. The outside cover 
was more like very strong paper than it was like cloth. 
There were some loose threads of silk under the outside 
cover. Under the loose threads was the real cocoon, 
which was smaller and much stronger than the outside 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


37 


cover. At last Uncle Jack had it cut open, too. Inside, it 
was nice and smooth. 

“Oh, it is dead,” said Marylee. “Isn't that too bad?” 

“No; it isn't dead,” replied Uncle Jack. “That is the 
brown pupa, and it is sound asleep. Watch it wriggle 
when I touch it.” Uncle Jack touched the pupa, and the 
back part of it moved. 

“Where did the caterpillar go?” asked Buddy. 

“Do you see that dried skin in the end of the cocoon?” 
asked Uncle Jack. “That is the caterpillar's skin. After 
he finished making the cocoon, he rested. Soon the skin 
split down his back, and was pushed to the back end of 
the cocoon, as the caterpillar changed to a pupa.” 

“I can see where its baby wings are,” said Marylee. 

“Yes, those are the baby wings. When the Cecropia 
caterpillar, we were watching on the other side of the 
bush, has finished his cocoon and wrapped himself in it, 
we shall take it home; so you can see the moth come out 
some day,” said Uncle Jack. 


TRAVELING BUTTERFLIES 


“Uncle Jack, where have all these butterflies come 
from?” cried Buddy, as reddish brown butterflies flew 
about his head. “There is a whole flock of them, and they 
are all flying toward the north as if they knew where 
they were going.” 

“They do know,” replied Uncle Jack, with a twinkle 
in his eye. “They are going home, and their home is a 
long way from here.” 

“Butterflies don’t have homes that they go back to like 
people do,” declared Marylee. “At least, I never heard 
of it if they do.” 

“You are right, Marylee,” Uncle Jack agreed. “But¬ 
terflies do not have houses for homes. But these butter¬ 
flies lived in the north last fall. When the winter cold 
began, they came south where it is warmer, so that they 
would not freeze to death. Now they are going back for 
the summer, because the north is really their home.” 

“Do you mean that these butterflies lived in the north 
last year, and then came south to spend the winter the 
way the birds do?” Buddy asked as if he were much 
puzzled. 

“Yes, Buddy, that is what these Monarch butterflies 
do. Now that winter is past, they are going back north,” 
Uncle Jack assured him. “Most butterflies die when it 
38 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


39 








40 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


becomes cold in the fall. It is their babies which live as 
pupas during the winter, and then hatch into butterflies 
when it becomes warm in the spring. Those butterflies 
do not travel south for the winter. But the Monarch 
butterflies gather on the trees in great numbers when 
they are getting ready to go south. There are sometimes 
enough butterflies hanging together to fill a large basket. 
They all leave before the winter storms begin, and do 
not return until the milkweeds begin to grow in the 
spring.” 

“What are milkweeds?” inquired Fred. 

“They are plants with large, thick leaves. When the 
leaves are broken, the sap comes out like drops of milk. 
But the sap does not taste like milk; it is bitter and sticky. 
The babies of this butterfly will eat nothing but the milk¬ 
weed which grows in the north. The mother butterfly 
travels hundreds of miles, so that she can lay her eggs on 
these plants. You could never guess why it is that birds 
do not try to catch and eat her, while she is traveling 
so far.” 

“I thought that birds ate all kinds of butterflies when¬ 
ever they could catch them,” said Bess. 

“They do like many kinds of butterflies, but they 
have learned that this butterfly does not taste good,” 
said Uncle Jack. “The birds not only leave it alone, but 
they will not touch any other butterfly that looks like it. 
There is a butterfly known as the Viceroy which is really 
very good for birds to eat. But the Viceroy looks so 
much like the Monarch that it fools the birds. They think 
it is the Monarch and never eat it.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


41 


“That is a good joke on the birds,” Marylee remarked, 
smiling. “What does the caterpillar of the Monarch look 
like, Uncle Jack?” 

“It has yellow and black stripes across its back which 
makes one think of a tiger,” he replied. “These bright- 
colored stripes protect it. This caterpillar is not good 
for the birds to eat, either. After the caterpillar becomes 
full-grown, it spins a little silk on the under side of a 
leaf. It then fastens the end of its tail to the silk and 
hangs with its head down. The striped skin splits on the 
back, and there is a beautiful green pupa with a row of 
wonderful golden spots that look like gold buttons. The 
reddish brown butterfly after a while comes out of this 
green pupa.” 

“What a wonderful story!” said Buddy. 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “Perhaps you may learn an¬ 
other butterfly story some day.” 





ALONG THE CREEK 

All things bright and beautiful, 
All creatures great and small, 
All things wise and wonderful, 
Our Father made them all. 


C. F. Alexander 








































. 









A FIGHTING CRAWFISH 


Buddy and Fred were wading in the shallow water 
of the creek. Fred stubbed his toe against a large stone. 
Then they tried to turn it over. 

“I see something moving!” cried Marylee, from the 
bank. 

“So do I. There it goes swimming away!” shouted 
Bess, as she ran along. 

How it did dart through the water! Fred and Buddy 
dropped the stone and hurried after Bess. 

“It hid under that other stone,” said Bess, as she 
pointed into the water. “It stirred up so much sand that 
I could not see it very well, but it was swimming tail 
first.” 

“Oh, then, I know what it is,” said Buddy. “It is a 
crawfish. They always swim backward.” Buddy boldly 
put his hand under the stone, and felt around. Suddenly 
he cried, “Ouch! It’s biting me!” 

He jerked back. The crawfish was holding to his 
finger with one of its front feet that looked like a pair 
of pincers. But it dropped off into the water and darted 
back under the stone. 

“Wait a minute,” said Uncle Jack, as Buddy again 
started to reach under the stone. “I shall tell you how to 
catch it and not get pinched. Lift up the stone with one 

45 


46 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


hand, and with your other hand catch the crawfish by 
its back, just behind the pincers. You must do it quickly.” 

Buddy grabbed the crawfish, as his uncle told him, 
and held it up. It waved its big pincers around, trying 
to get hold of him. 

“Let me take it,” said Uncle Jack, “and IT1 tell you 
about it. The crawfish has this hard shell all over its 
back, and so is not easily hurt. When the crawfish grows 
too big, the old shell cracks open on the back, and the 
crawfish comes out in a new soft one. This shell also be¬ 
comes hard after a few days.” 

“Four of its legs have little pincers,” added Fred. 

“Yes, but it is the pair of legs near the head that have 
the big ones. These are made for fighting, and for catch¬ 
ing worms and tiny fish for the crawfish to eat. This big 
strong tail is used for swimming.” Uncle Jack turned 
the crawfish over, so that they could see the under side. 

“Oh! See all those little white things under the tail!” 
cried Bess. “Why, they are alive and they all have tiny 
pincers, too!” 

“We are lucky,” exclaimed Uncle Jack. “This is a 
mother crawfish and her whole family of babies.” 

The children put their heads so close to see, that Mother 
Crawfish almost pinched Fred’s nose. 

“How do those baby crawfish hang on?” asked Buddy. 

“They stick to those paddle-like things under their 
mother’s tail. In the spring when she is ready to lay her 
eggs, she covers those little paddles, called swimmerets, 
with waterproof glue. Then she sticks her eggs on them 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


47 



in little bunches that look like grapes. They stick there 
until they hatch. The babies keep clinging to the mother’s 
swimmerets until they are big enough to swim. The 
babies are just like Mother Crawfish, only they are 
smaller, soft, and white. They have legs, pincers, eyes, 
and feelers.” 

“What are feelers?” asked Bess. 

“The feelers are those two long hair-like things that 
stick out in front. The crawfish uses them when the 
water is so muddy that she cannot see where she is going. 
The feelers help her to know where the stones are; so 
she will not run into them.” 











48 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Poor Mother Crawfish,” said Bess. “Now I know 
why she was afraid and tried so hard to get away. She 
did not want her babies to be hurt. Let's put her back 
into the water; so she can be happy again." 

Uncle Jack placed her in the water, and she darted 
backwards out of sight. 


A SUNFISH GUARDING HIS NEST 


Uncle Jack and the children sat down on the bank of 
the creek to watch some little fish in the clear water. 

“Aren’t those beautiful little fish?” remarked Bess. 

“They are pretty,” answered Uncle Jack. “I like their 
name, too. They are called Sunfish.” 

“They are almost as bright as sunshine,” said Fred. 
“They seem to like to stay out where the sunshine is the 
brightest.” 

“What a beauty this one near us is,” said Marylee. 
“Why is it swimming round and round in that one spot, 
and flapping its tail?” 

“That is Mr. Sunfish, and he is making a nest for 
Mrs. Sunfish,” replied Uncle Jack. 

“Does he do all the work?” asked Bess. 

“Yes, he makes the nest by himself. When he has it 
finished, Mrs. Sunfish will lay some eggs in it, and then 
leave him to take care of them.” 

“Doesn’t she help to take care of the eggs and the nest, 
and feed the babies when they hatch?” asked Marylee. 

“No, she leaves all that work for Daddy Sunfish,” 
Uncle Jack replied. 

Buddy added, “Mother told us that is what Mrs. Cat¬ 
fish does.” 


49 


50 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“I think I would like to be Mrs. Sunfish," said Mary- 
lee. “How nice it would be if the men did all the work 
in the house !" 

“Mr. Sunfish doesn't look as if he had a hard job," said 
Uncle Jack. “See how he sweeps the little stones out of 
the nest with his tail. There is one so large he can't 
sweep it out. But he won't have it in the middle of the 
nest, for he wants only clean, white sand. Now watch 
him get the stone out." 

“He is picking it up in his mouth," exclaimed Fred. 
“Now he has carried it out to the edge of his nest, and 
dropped it. Is that the way he made that circle of stones 
around the edge of the nest?" 

“Yes, that is the way he took out all the larger ones," 
answered Uncle Jack. “I believe the nest is finished 
now." 

“There he goes to visit that other Sunfish," said Bess. 

“That is Mrs. Sunfish," continued Uncle Jack. “He 
is going to tell her the nest is ready, and to ask her to 
come and lay some eggs in it. She isn't as brightly col¬ 
ored as he is. You will find that mother birds never 
have as pretty colors as father birds. It is the same with 
fish. Watch his colors grow brighter when he stops in 
front of Mrs. Sunfish." 

“He looks like a rainbow," said Marylee. “See him 
spread out his ears. He wants her to see how pretty 
they are." 

“Those spots of color on the sides of his head are not 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


51 



ears,” corrected Uncle Jack. “They are just beauty 
spots. He is showing her how handsome he is.” 

“I wonder what he is telling her,” said Bess. 

“He does not talk with words the way we do,” replied 
Uncle Jack, with a smile. “But he is telling her what a 
beautiful nest he has ready for her.” 

“Look, Uncle Jack!” whispered Marylee. “She is go¬ 
ing to the nest with him!” 

“Now she is swimming round and round in the nest. 
Why is she doing that?” asked Fred. 

“She is laying eggs,” answered Uncle Jack. “Fish do 
not lay just four or five as the birds do. They lay hun- 













52 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


dreds of eggs. The tiny eggs fall down on the bottom of 
the nest and stick to the sand.” 

“Look, Mrs. Sunfish is leaving the nest and swimming 
away,” said Buddy. “Now what will Mr. Sunfish do?” 

“He will guard his nest until the eggs hatch. That 
will take only a few days,” said Uncle Jack. “Then the 
baby fish will swim away, and his work will be done.” 

“Doesn’t he stay with his babies, and take care of them 
the way Daddy Catfish did when we saw him last year?” 
asked Marylee. 

“No, he doesn’t,” answered Uncle Jack. “His babies 
have to take care of themselves as soon as they hatch. 
He only looks after the eggs. He keeps the other fish 
from eating them.” 

“There is a much bigger fish coming near the nest 
now,” cried Buddy. “See how Mr. Sunfish is watching 
him.” 

“But Mr. Sunfish doesn’t seem to be afraid,” said 
Uncle Jack. “Now, watch him fight! See him pinch the 
fins of that big fish and butt him in the sides. There, 
the big fish has had enough, and he’s glad to get away. 
That was a fine fight! He won’t come back here again.” 

“What a brave little daddy Mr. Sunfish is!” said 
Marylee. 


TADPOLE TO BULLFROG 


“We must be going home before long,” said Uncle 
Jack, as they walked along the bank of the creek. 

“Why so soon?” asked Fred. 

“There is a dark cloud coming, and I think that it 
will rain after a while,” said Uncle Jack. “The cloud 
has already covered the sun.” 

“Let’s find just one more treasure before we go,” said 
Marylee. 

“Please! Please!” begged the others. 

Before Uncle Jack could answer, they heard something 
on the bank of the creek. 

“Chug-er-um! Chug-er-um! Chug-er-um!” 

“What is that?” whispered Bess. She was so fright¬ 
ened that she could not talk very well. It was a big 
voice, and it came from the shrubs and plants at the 
edge of the water. 

Uncle Jack laughed and said, “That is your next treas¬ 
ure. Let’s see if we can find him.” 

“Chug-er-um! Chug-er-um! Chug-er-um!” said the 
voice again. 

“I don’t think that I want to find that treasure,” said 
Marylee. 

“Tut! Tut! Marylee,” said Uncle Jack, as he put his 
arm around her. “It is nothing that will hurt you. That 
is only a big bullfrog. He is telling everyone how glad 

53 


54 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


he is that the sun is behind the cloud, and that he hopes 
it will rain soon.” 

Marylee smiled at Uncle Jack. “I am not afraid of 
just a frog,” she said. “He must be a big one, though, 
and I wonder if he looks like the toads in our garden.” 

“We must walk very quietly,” said Uncle Jack, “or we 
shall scare him, and he will jump into the water.” 

As they tiptoed along, they looked for the bullfrog. 
Uncle Jack stopped suddenly. “He is sitting there on 
the bank under the leaves of that little weed. Can you 
see him?” whispered Uncle Jack, as he pointed ahead. 

They looked and looked. At first, they could not see 
the frog, because his back was dark green, and looked 
almost like the leaves. Finally, everyone saw him. 

“He is as big as my two fists,” whispered Buddy. 

“He looks something like a toad,” added Fred. “But 
he doesn’t have warts like a toad, and his legs seem 
longer.” 

The bullfrog saw them, and suddenly jumped into 
the water. He looked so long stretched out in the air, 
and he made such a big splash that Bess and Marylee 
both cried, “Oh!” 

“There may be some baby frogs in the shallow water 
at the edge of the creek where the grass is growing,” 
said Uncle Jack. 

Marylee put her hands into the water. “What is this 
funny stuff, Uncle Jack?” she asked as she lifted some¬ 
thing up. “It looks like white jelly, and it has some lit¬ 
tle round black things in it.” 

“Those are frogs’ eggs,” Uncle Jack told her. “Mother 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


55 



Frog lays them in that jelly to protect them before they 
hatch.” 

“What do the babies look like?” asked Bess. 

“Don't you see those little things wriggling through 
the water?” answered Uncle Jack. “Those are baby 
frogs. They are called tadpoles. Catch one!” 

But that was not as easy as it looked. The tadpoles 
darted here and there. 

“I have one,” cried Fred. “It is a queer little thing 
with a round body and long tail. I see two eyes and a 
mouth, but it does not have a head nor any legs.” 

“It uses that little round mouth to eat the green moss 










56 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


that grows on the rocks and stems of plants under the 
water,” explained Uncle Jack. “Tadpoles cannot catch 
and eat insects like frogs do.” 

“Now I have one, too!” cried Buddy. “But mine has 
two little hind legs.” 

“Yes, the hind legs are beginning to grow on yours,” 
said Uncle Jack. “The front legs will start to grow as 
soon as the hind legs get a little larger. His tail will get 
smaller as the front legs get larger. All the time he will 
be growing more and more like a real frog. Soon he will 
have a head and legs, and be a real frog. Then he will 
come out on the bank, and croak his song.” 

“Oh, I have one that has legs and a tail, too,” said 
Marylee. 

“Yes, yours is not a tadpole, and it is not a frog,” said 
Uncle Jack. “It is just about to lose its long tail and be 
a frog. I like to call it a tad-frog. The poor little fellow 
cannot eat the green moss now, because his mouth has 
changed so that he cannot nibble it off. And his mouth is 
not yet large enough, so that he can catch insects.” 

“If he cannot eat moss like a tadpole nor insects like 
a frog, then what does he eat, Uncle Jack?” Fred wanted 
to know. 

“He does not eat anything while his legs and head 
are forming. He gets his strength from his large tail 
which grows smaller and smaller, or it is absorbed, so 
we say, into the rest of his body.” 

“I understand now,” cried Marylee. “He simply takes 
his tail into his body and makes a head and some legs 
out of it.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


57 



“That is right, Marylee,” agreed Uncle Jack. “And 
by the time his tail is all used up, his legs are large 
enough, so that he can hop. Then he comes out of the 
water to catch insects to eat. He is a real frog now, 
although a very small one. If we keep this tad-frog out 
of the water much longer, he may die just as a fish out 
of water does.” 

“I will put him back,” Marylee said quickly. “Of 
course, I do not want him to die.” 

“He is so scared he can hardly swim,” said Buddy. 

“The trouble is that he is trying to use both his feet 
and his tail,” Uncle Jack explained. “When he was a 
tadpole, he had no legs and swam with his tail. Now 
that he is about to be a frog and has legs, he is trying 
to swim with them. It is as much fun to watch a tad-frog 
swim as it is to watch a baby walk. But the clouds are 
getting darker. It will soon rain. We must be going.” 







WIGGLE-TAILS 


Uncle Jack and the children were sitting on the porch 
that evening after the rain. Suddenly he slapped his 
arm. “These mosquitoes seem to think that I am a picnic 
dinner. But that one will not bite me again,” he ex¬ 
claimed as he looked at a spot of blood on his arm. 

“Where did that blood come from?” asked Marylee. 

“It came from my arm,” Uncle Jack replied. “Mrs. 
Mosquito’s bill is hollow, and as sharp as a needle. When 
she stuck it into me, she sucked my blood through it, 
like you suck soda water through a straw.” 

“How do you know that it was Mrs. Mosquito?” asked 
Buddy. 

“Because it is Mrs. Mosquito who does all of the biting. 
Mr. Mosquito does not have so big and strong a bill as 
Mrs. Mosquito. He sucks nectar out of flowers, and 
juices out of berries and fruits, but he never bites nor 
sucks blood out of people.” 

Suddenly Buddy slapped his leg. “Ouch! one bit me. 
I don’t like them. I wish I could kill them all.” 

“Yes, mosquitoes should be killed,” said Uncle Jack. 
“The easiest way is to kill them before they get their 
wings.” 

“Where can we find them before they get their wings?” 
asked Buddy. 


58 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


59 



“You will find them in water that has been standing 
for some time, as in a barrel, in an old can, or in a small 
still pond. I am sure that you have seen them many, 
many times. Perhaps you called them wiggle-tails.” 

“Oh, do wiggle-tails turn into mosquitoes?” asked 
Marylee. “I didn't know that. Of course, we have seen 
wiggle-tails. I know where there are some now. There 
is an old tin can back of the house with some water in it 
from the last rain.” 

“Let's get it,” said Buddy. He and Marylee soon re¬ 
turned with the can. 

































60 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


“What is that thing on top of the water which looks 
like a tiny boat?” asked Marylee. 

“That is a kind of boat/’ replied Uncle Jack. “Mrs. 
Mosquito lays her eggs on top of the water and fastens 
them together as you see them, so that they will float. 
Each egg is so small that you can hardly see it. It is 
long, with one end down in the water. When the baby 
wiggle-tail is ready to come out, he makes a hole in the 
bottom end of the egg, and there he is right in the water 
where he wants to be.” 

“He punches a hole in the bottom of the boat, doesn’t 
he?” remarked Buddy. 

“Yes, that is just what he does,” Uncle Jack re¬ 
plied. “We can’t see the wiggle-tails very well in this 
can. Buddy, ask your mother for an empty glass jar.” 

Buddy got a jar, and Uncle Jack poured the water 
from the can into it. 

“My, how many there are of them!” said Marylee. 
“See them wriggle their funny little tails. They wriggle 
down to the bottom, and then, in a little while, they 
float up to the top. Why do they touch the top of the 
water with their tails, and hang for a moment with 
their heads down?” 

“They are breathing,” answered Uncle Jack, “but not 
through noses like you do. They stick their tails just 
above the top of the water and breathe through them.” 

“But some of them do not put their tails up to the top 
of the water, they stick up their ears,” declared Marylee. 
“Are they breathing through their ears instead of their 
tails?” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 61 

“Those little things do look like ears,” said Uncle 
Jack, as he laughed, “but they are little tubes just back 
of the wiggle-tail’s head. He gets air through those 
tubes so that he will not drown.” 

“Are these two different kinds of wiggle-tails?” asked 
Buddy. 

“No,” replied Uncle Jack. “The young wiggle-tails are 
the ones which breathe through their tails. When they 
become full-grown wiggle-tails, they stop breathing 
through their tails and breathe through these other 
tubes. They stop eating, too, because they are changing 
from wiggle-tails to mosquitoes and they do not yet have 
a mouth.” 

“They are almost like tad-frogs , aren’t they, Uncle 
Jack?” Marylee remarked. Before Uncle Jack could re¬ 
ply, she cried, “Oh, look! look! The skin of that one at 
the top of the water is splitting down the back! It is 
popping open!” 

The crack in the skin opened wider and wider. Slowly 
a mosquito pushed itself up through the crack. Care¬ 
fully it stood on the empty skin which floated on the 
water like a tiny raft. 

“How wonderful! How very, very wonderful!” ex¬ 
claimed Marylee almost in a whisper, because she could 
hardly believe her eyes. “There sits a mosquito with 
head, eyes, wings, and legs, and it crawled out of that 
thing which did not look a bit like a mosquito.” 

“It is wonderful the way they change from wiggle- 
tails to mosquitoes,” agreed Buddy, “but I don’t like 


62 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


them. What is the best way to kill mosquitoes, Uncle 
Jack?” 

“While they are living in the water, they will soon die 
if they cannot get air,” explained Uncle Jack. “They 
must come up for it, like you do when you are diving. 
Now, if you put a little oil on the top of the water, it 
gets into the breathing holes in their tails, and keeps out 
the air. So men put oil on ponds where there are wiggle- 
tails, and soon no more mosquitoes come from those 
places.” 

“I wish the places where these mosquitoes came from 
had been oiled,” exclaimed Buddy, as he slapped his legs 
again. 

“There would not be many here if you would turn 
upside down all the old cans and dishes around the house. 
If there is too much water for you to empty, pour a 
little oil in it. Wiggle-tails should not be allowed to live, 
for after a while they become mosquitoes and fly away. 
The bites of mosquitoes annoy people, and may cause 
them to have fevers. That is the way we get malaria.” 

“Let's look for wiggle-tails tomorrow, Buddy,” sug¬ 
gested Marylee, “and pour oil on the water.” 

“All right. We'll kill everyone we find,” replied 
Buddy. 


LITTLE CREATURES WITH MANY LEGS 

Go forth under the open sky , and list 
To Nature*s teachings . 


W. C. Bryant 






GIVING A SPIDER ITS DINNER 


“See what a pretty thing I have found,” called Bess. 

Buddy was there first. “Oh, that is just a spider 
web,” he told her. 

“It looks like a big white silk handkerchief spread out 
on the grass,” said Marylee. 

“Why do spiders build such pretty nests?” asked Bess. 

“That is not a nest,” replied Buddy, laughing at Bess. 
“That is a trap in which the spider catches its food.” 

“Where is the spider?” 

“Do you see that round hole in the side of the web? It 
goes down under that dead grass. Mrs. Spider hides in 
there so that the insects cannot see her. When an insect 
flies or crawls into the web, it gets caught in the sticky 
threads. Then Mrs. Spider rushes out and catches it.” 

“Buddy, how did you learn so much about spiders?” 
asked Bess. 

“There is one in our garden at home. She is my pet. 
I feed her insects every day. When I put something into 
her web, she rushes out to get it. It is fun to feed her.” 

“Oh, let's feed this one,” cried Bess. 

They began to hunt for insects. Fred caught the first 
one. It was a little grasshopper. “Buddy, please feed it 
to her,” said Fred. 


65 


66 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


Buddy told the children to stand away from the web. 
He said that Mrs. Spider would be afraid of them and 
not come out of her hole if they stood too close. Then 
Buddy reached over and dropped the grasshopper on the 
web. Its feet stuck fast. How it did kick and pull, try¬ 
ing to get loose! Mrs. Spider rushed out of her hole. 
She put her web around the grasshopper so quickly that 
the children could not see just how she did it. She rolled 
the grasshopper up into a little ball with the web all 
around it. The grasshopper could not wriggle a leg. 
Then she carried it back into her hole. 

Bess and Fred looked at each other. Then they looked 
at Buddy, who was laughing at their surprise. 

“Didn’t I tell you it was fun to feed her?” he asked. 

“It is fun,” said Bess. “That’s better than a picture 
show. Let’s feed her something else.” 

Bess caught a big red ant and dropped it on the web. 
Mrs. Spider darted out of her hole again. But this time 
she stopped and looked at the ant for a little while. Then 
she wrapped it up in her web, but she did not take it 
back into her hole. She left the ant where it was. 

“Now, why didn’t she take my ant into her hole?” 
asked Bess. 

“Mrs. Spider knows what is good to eat and what is 
not,” laughed Uncle Jack, who had been watching the 
children. “Very few birds eat ants, because ants do not 
taste good to them.” 

“We saw the flickers eat ants,” said Marylee. 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “The flicker is one of the 
few birds in this country that will eat ants.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


67 



“I know that they do not taste good,” said Buddy. 

“You never ate one, did you, Buddy?” asked Bess. 

“I tasted some. The ants got into Mother’s honey, but 
they were so small that we did not see them. I put some 
of the honey into my mouth. All I could taste were the 
ants. Ugh, they tasted bad! I am not surprised that 
Mrs. Spider does not like them.” 

“Uncle Jack, do spiders bite?” asked Bess. “The lit¬ 
tle boy who lives near me is afraid of them. Some people 
kill all they can find.” 

“There are many kinds of spiders,” answered Uncle 
Jack. “Most of them will not bite you, even though you 






68 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


catch them with your hand. But some of them can bite 
hard enough to make the blood come. A few will make 
you ill when they bite. It is best never to touch spiders. 
Then you can be sure that they will not hurt you. They 
are useful in the fields; so it is not right to kill them 
unless they are in your house.” 


MARYLEE FINDS DANGER 


‘Tm going to find the next treasure,” said Marylee, as 
she ran ahead of Uncle Jack and the other children. Soon 
she came to an old board fence. “I have found it,” she 
called a few minutes later. 

“What is it?” cried Buddy, as he hurried to her. 

“It is some kind of a spider,” said Marylee. She pointed 
to the top of one of the posts. “It is in the web under 
that board.” 

“I see,” said Buddy. “Its back is as black as can be. 
It shines the way my shoes do after I have polished 
them.” 

“There’s a bright red spot on its under side,” said 
Marylee. “What kind of a spider is it, Uncle Jack?” 

“That is a spider that you must never, never touch,” 
said Uncle Jack. “It is called the Black Widow. You 
may die if it bites you.” 

“Oh!” said Marylee, as she put her hands behind her. 
“I didn’t know that any spider was as bad as that.” 

“Many of the spiders will not hurt you any more than 
a cricket will,” said Uncle Jack. “There are others that 
may hurt almost as much as a bee sting.” 

“Well, I’m not going to touch any of them if they hurt 
as much as those wasps that stung me,” said Buddy. 

“It is best never to touch any spider until you are old 
enough to learn which ones will bite and which ones will 
not,” said Uncle Jack. “You can learn now to know the 

69 


70 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


black widow whenever you see her. There are several 
kinds of black spiders that have short legs and are cov¬ 
ered with hair. The black widow is the only spider I 
know which has a bright black color, long legs, and no 
hair. Some of the black widow spiders have a spot or 
two of red on their backs, but others do not have those 
spots. However, all black widows have a red spot on the 
under side.” 

“Uncle Jack, should we kill the black widow whenever 
we find her?” asked Fred. 

“Yes,” replied Uncle Jack. “I never kill any of the 
other spiders, but I kill the black widows just as I kill 
rattlesnakes.” 

“What is that round gray ball in her web?” asked 
Bess. 

“That is a little silken bag,” replied Uncle Jack. “Mrs. 
Black Widow makes the bag and then lays her eggs in it. 
The bag is strong; so the eggs are dry and safe inside. 
When the babies hatch, they crawl out.” 

“There are some little black things in the web that 
look like tiny spiders. Can those be baby black widows?” 
asked Buddy. 

“Well, I did not see them before,” answered Uncle 
Jack, as he looked at the web. “Yes, those are baby 
spiders, and there are more than a hundred of them. 
They have just come out of the silken bag.” 

“Spiders are not insects, are they, Uncle Jack?” asked 
Marylee. 

“No,” answered her uncle. “All spiders have eight 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


71 



legs. The grasshoppers, butterflies, and wasps have only 
six. All true insects have only six legs when they are 
grown. But spiders and daddy longlegs have more than 
six legs; so we do not call them insects.” 

“I am going to remember always that the black widow 
spider has long legs, and is shining black with a red spot 
on the under side,” said Marylee. 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack, “and be careful not to put 
your fingers into places where you cannot see. The black 
widow likes to stay under boards, rocks, and places where 
it is dark. She may bite you if you put your fingers 
where she is hiding.” 










A MOTHER SCORPION 


“I am going to look under this flat rock,” said Buddy. 
“There are lots of treasures under rocks.” 

“Be careful not to put your fingers under it, because 
a black widow spider might be there and bite you,” said 
Marylee. 

The children had walked ahead while Uncle Jack rested 
by the creek. 

Buddy turned the rock over carefully. “Here is the 
funniest spider with a long tail,” he cried. 

“No, that isn't a spider, Buddy,” replied Fred. “It is 
a little crawfish. Can't you see its pincers?” 

“I am going to catch it in my hand,” said Buddy. 

“No, no, Buddy!” cried Marylee. “You must not touch 
it. Don't you remember Uncle Jack told us never to 
touch anything unless we knew what it was? It might 
sting you or bite you, or do something to hurt you. I 
am going to call Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack! Please come 
and see this queer animal that we have found.” 

“All right,” answered Uncle Jack. 

“Here we are,” called Buddy. “Fred thinks this is a 
crawfish because it has pincers, and I think that it is a 
spider because it has eight legs. Which one is right?” 

72 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


73 



“Oh, ho! What a fine treasure that is!” said Uncle 
Jack, when he saw it. “That is not a spider, and it is 
not a crawfish. It is a mother scorpion.” 

“Buddy wanted to pick it up,” said Marylee, “but I 
told him that you said not to pick up things unless we 
knew what they were.” 

“You are right to remember what I told you,” said 
Uncle Jack. “Buddy would have been very, very sorry 
if he had picked up this scorpion. Do you see the long 
tail that she holds over her back? Do you see that sharp 
point on the end of her tail?” 









74 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“I can see it,” said Bess. “It looks like a rose thorn. 
What is it for?” 

“That is her sting,” explained Uncle Jack. “And she 
knows how to use it. She has a little sac of poison in the 
end of her tail below the sting. The sting is hollow. When 
she pushes it into your flesh, she squeezes a little poison 
through it. The poison goes into your body and that is 
what causes the pain.” 

“Is it as poisonous as the bite of the black widow 
spider?” asked Buddy. 

“No, it isn’t as bad as the bite of the black widow,” 
replied Uncle Jack. “A scorpion’s sting does not hurt 
much more than the sting of a wasp.” 

“I don’t want her to sting me,” said Buddy. “I haven’t 
forgotten those wasps.” 

“What does she do with those pincers?” asked Bess. 

“She eats insects, and she uses her pincers to catch 
and hold them,” answered Uncle Jack. “She also fights 
with her pincers and her sting.” 

“What are those funny things all over her back?” 
asked Marylee. Then she cried, “I see now! One of them 
moved. They are baby scorpions. And they are riding 
on her back.” 

“Yes, they are baby scorpions,” said Uncle Jack. “I 
saw them when I first looked at Mother Scorpion, but I 
wanted you to find them without being told.” 

“I see them now,” said Buddy. “They are crawling 
around on her back. There is one climbing up her tail, 
playing circus.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


75 


“How does Mother Scorpion feed them/’ asked 
Marylee. 

“I had several mother scorpions and their babies one 
summer/’ said Uncle Jack. “The babies didn’t do any¬ 
thing but sit on the mother’s back for two or three weeks. 
They did not seem to eat a thing, but they did grow 
slowly, and they shed their skins once. No one knows 
how they can grow without eating. Perhaps you will 
study them when you are older and will find out how 
they do it. Many people think that the babies slowly eat 
their mother until she dies. And then they are large 
enough to take care of themselves. But the mothers that 
I kept did not die. I am very sure that the babies did not 
hurt their mother. When they grew larger, they crawled 
down on the ground for a while and then climbed back 
on their mother. Later they left her and hunted for 
food.” 

“Should we kill scorpions when we find them?” asked 
Fred. 

“I don’t think so,” replied Uncle Jack. “They do no 
harm out in the fields. Of course, if they come into the 
house, you must do something with them so that you 
will not get stung.” 

“Let’s leave this mother and her babies alone then,” 
said Marylee. 


A HUNDRED PAIRS OF LEGS 


“Snake! Snake! It is in there!” screamed Bess, who 
was near a clump of weeds. 

The others ran toward her. Fred picked up a big 
stick. 

“No, no, Fred!” called Uncle Jack. “Don't hurt it until 
I get there and see what kind it is.” 

“It's—it’s there in the weeds,” said Bess. She was so 
frightened that she could hardly talk. “I — I almost 
stepped on it.” 

Uncle Jack came closer. “I see it,” he said. He 
stooped, reached among the weeds, and caught some¬ 
thing. Then he stood up, holding in his hand a squirm¬ 
ing, wriggling snake. 

“Oh, Uncle Jack, it will bite you!” cried Marylee. 

“No, it won't,” replied he. “But I don't care if it does. 
I have had snakes like this one bite me many times.” 

“Why didn’t you die when they bit you?” asked Bess. 
“I thought that people always died when snakes bit 
them.” 

“Well, I am not dead yet,” laughed Uncle Jack. “There 
are good snakes and bad snakes. This is one of the good 
snakes. The bad ones have two long, sharp teeth in the 
top of their mouths, which are poison teeth. Their bite 
makes one sick and sometimes it kills a person.” 

76 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


77 



“Doesn’t this snake have long poison teeth?” asked 
Buddy. 

Uncle Jack was holding the snake carefully by the 
neck. He did not hurt it. He pulled open the snake’s 
mouth so that the children could look in it. 

“Why, its teeth are just baby teeth,” said Marylee. 
“They aren’t big enough to hurt anyone.” 

“No, they are not,” said Uncle Jack. “The little snake 
will try to bite, and it will pinch your fingers. If you 
pull while it is pinching, the tiny teeth will scratch a 
little, but there is no poison in them.” 













78 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“What a queer little black tongue with a fork on the 
end of it,” said Marylee. “Isn’t it poisonous?” 

“It isn’t any more poisonous than your tongue is,” 
laughed Uncle Jack, as he put his finger close to the 
mouth of the snake and let the little tongue touch it, 

“Do you want to let it lick your finger, Marylee?” 
asked Uncle Jack. “It will not hurt you.” 

Marylee was almost afraid to do it. She put her finger 
close to the mouth of the snake. Out came the little 
tongue and licked her finger. 

“Let me do it! Let me do it!” cried the other chil¬ 
dren, when they saw that Marylee was not afraid. 

“What does this little snake eat?” asked Fred. 

“This snake with the yellow stripe down the middle 
of its back is called a Garter Snake. It eats earthworms, 
insects, frogs, and toads.” 

“How can it kill a frog with those tiny, tiny teeth?” 
asked Fred. 

“It doesn’t kill the frog,” said Uncle Jack. “The snake 
swallows the frog alive.” 

“Oh! How terrible!” cried the girls. 

“It does seem terrible to us,” said Uncle Jack. “But 
you must remember that the toad swallows beetles alive. 
Some of the bettles eat other insects alive. It is the way 
the wild things have learned to eat.” 

“I don’t see how a snake with such a little head can 
swallow a frog,” said Buddy. “A frog is much bigger 
than the snake’s head.” 

“The frog is much bigger, but the snake swallows it,” 
said Uncle Jack. “The back part of the snake’s jaws 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


79 


spreads apart and the skin of the cheeks stretches like 
rubber. If Buddy had a mouth like a snake, he could 
swallow a whole apple pie at one time.” 

“How can a snake run so fast?” asked Buddy. 

“The snake walks on the ends of its ribs,” said Uncle 
Jack. “Each rib is a leg fastened to one of these scales 
underneath. When it runs, it moves its ribs back and 
forth. That moves the scales. Don’t you think that you 
could run fast, too, if you had a hundred pairs of legs?” 

“Yes,” laughed Buddy, “if I could make them all work 
together. Sometimes the two that I have get mixed up 
and I fall down. But, does the snake really have a hun¬ 
dred ribs that it uses for legs?” 

“Some of them have that many ribs. If you don't think 
that a snake can work them together, just watch this 
one run,” and Uncle Jack put it down on the ground. 
The little snake glided away in the grass, happy to be 
free once more. 

“Before we hunt for other treasures, there is some¬ 
thing more I want to say about snakes,” said Uncle 
Jack. “This is one of the rules for you to remember 
always: Never pick up any kind of snake unless some 
older person is with you who knows that the snake will 
not harm you. You do not know enough to tell good 
snakes from bad snakes, and you might pick up one that 
will bite you and make you very, very ill.” 


AN ANIMAL IN A BOX HOUSE 


“Uncle Jack, do you see wh&t I see?” asked Buddy, as 
he looked toward some weeds. 

“What queer thing are you seeing now?” asked Uncle 
Jack, as he stopped beside him. 

“I don’t know. That is what I wish you would tell 
me. It looks like a stone moving very slowly over there.” 
Buddy pointed to something that was about the size of 
half an indoor baseball with the flat side on the ground. 

“Go and look at it. That is the way to learn what 
things are. Don’t ask me to tell you everything. Find 
out all you can for yourself.” 

Buddy did not wait any longer. Before he got to it, 
it stopped moving. It had no head, no tail, and no legs, 
that Buddy could see. It did not seem to be alive. Buddy 
wanted to pick it up, but he remembered the wasps. 
Then he saw a little head slowly peep out at him from 
under one edge. 

“Hey! Everybody come quickly!” he called. “See what 
a fine treasure I have found!” 

“Do you know what it is?” asked his uncle. 

“Yes; some kind of a turtle.” 

“A good guess. But there are many kinds of turtles. 
Some live in the sea, some in rivers and lakes, and some 
live on the land like this one. Many people call all of 
80 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


81 



them turtles, because they do not know the real names 
for them. It is right to call those that live in the sea, 
turtles. But those that live in rivers and lakes should 
be called terrapins. Those that go around on the land 
all of the time are called tortoises. This one is a Box 
Tortoise. How long do you think you will remember all 
of that?” 

“I will remember it this way,” said Bess. 

“Terrapin in the river; 

Turtle in the sea; 

Tortoise on the land, 

Just like you and me.” 













82 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“That is fine. I am sure you will remember it now,” 
laughed Uncle Jack. “Fred, pick it up.” 

“Will it bite me?” he asked. 

“Don’t get your fingers too close to its head.” 

Fred picked up the tortoise, and turned it over. 

“Where did his head go?” asked Bess. “I know he 
has one, because I saw it.” 

Buddy said, “That shell bottom has a door at each end. 
He pulls in his head, his legs, and his tail, and then closes 
the doors.” 

“Put him down on his back, Fred,” said Uncle Jack. 
“Then let’s hide behind a bush and watch him.” 

They did as Uncle Jack suggested. 

Nothing happened for a few minutes. Then they saw 
each end of the shell bottom move a little. Yes, it was 
just as Buddy had said. Each end had a little door. They 
saw the head and two legs stick out of one door, and two 
legs and a little tail out of the other. Slowly the head 
came out farther and farther. At last the nose touched 
the ground. The tortoise pushed his head against the 
ground and turned himself over on his feet. Then he 
began to crawl away. The children ran to catch him. 
When he saw them, back into his shell he went and closed 
the doors again. 

“He has a tight box to live in,” said Bess. 

“Yes, and so strong that not many things can hurt 
him. Can they, Uncle Jack?” asked Fred. 

“Very few things can hurt the tortoise when he is in 
his box, and he always has it with him,” replied Uncle 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


83 


Jack. “Did you know that his ribs are outside of his 
body?” 

“How can that be?” asked Fred. “I thought that ribs 
were always on the inside.” 

“The tortoise isn’t like other animals,” continued Uncle 
Jack. “His ribs grow together and make his shell. He 
wears them on the outside to protect his body.” 

“What do tortoises eat?” asked Marylee. 

“Tortoises don’t have any teeth, but the edges of the 
mouth are so sharp that they can bite juicy leaves and 
fruits,” replied Uncle Jack. 

“It’s my time to find a treasure now,” said Bess, as 
they left the little tortoise where they found him. 


A FIGHTING LIZARD 


“Here is a big flat rock,” called Bess. “Do you think 
it hides a treasure, Uncle Jack?” 

“Yes, rocks usually hide treasures,” said Uncle Jack. 
“Many insects and little animals like to hide under them. 
I will lift this one up for you.” 

The children stood around the rock while Uncle Jack 
lifted it. 

“Oh! Oh!” screamed the girls, as they jumped back. 

“Look out!” cried the boys, as they ran backward. 
“It’s a lizard, Uncle Jack! It’s a big green lizard!” 

The lizard did not run away. It stood with its mouth 
wide open and looked angrily at them. It seemed to be 
trying to make up its mind which one had turned its 
house over. 

“He must be poisonous!” cried Marylee. “I can see 
down inside his throat, and it is all black!” 

“Shall I get a stick and kill him?” asked Fred. 

“No, Fred,” answered Uncle Jack, quickly. “You must 
never kill any of the little lizards.” 

“But isn’t he poisonous?” asked Fred. 

“Oh, no,” replied Uncle Jack. “He will not hurt you. 
Lizards are very good friends of mine. I like them so 
much that it makes me angry to think of anyone hurt¬ 
ing them.” 


84 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


85 



“I think that this one is beautiful, now that I know 
he will not poison me/’ said Marylee. 

“He is such a pretty green, and that black collar makes 
him look dressed up,” said Bess. 

“He is called the Collared Lizard because of that col¬ 
lar,” said Uncle Jack. 

“But he will bite even if he isn’t poisonous, won’t he, 
Uncle Jack?” asked Buddy. 

“Yes, he can and will bite if he gets a chance, because 
he thinks that you will hurt him. He is very brave and 
will fight as hard as he knows how. When he gets hold 
of anything, he will not let go for a long time. He has 










86 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


such tiny teeth that he can’t hurt any more than a little 
garter snake can. He just pinches.” 

“Won’t you show us how he bites?” asked Buddy. 

“I don’t like to tease him” said Uncle Jack. “But I 
will just this time; so you can see what a brave fighter 
he is.” 

Uncle Jack took a long stick and tied his handkerchief 
around the end of it. He waved the handkerchief back 
and forth above the lizard. The lizard opened his mouth 
very wide. What a big mouth he had! Suddenly he 
jumped up. Snap, went his mouth as he caught the hand¬ 
kerchief. He closed his eyes and hung on. Uncle Jack 
shook the handkerchief, but the lizard still hung on as 
he swung in the air. 

“How can you make him let go now?” asked Buddy. 

“That will be easy to do,” answered Uncle Jack, as he 
picked up the lizard in his hand. Gently he opened the 
lizard’s jaws. The lizard tried to pinch his fingers, but 
Uncle Jack just laughed and kept his fingers out of 
the way. 

“Now I am going to show you a lizard that can run 
on two feet,” said Uncle Jack. “Watch him.” 

Uncle Jack put the lizard on the ground and let him 
go. He ran on all four feet, for a little way. Then he 
went so fast that his front feet seemed to be in his way. 
He raised up his body, lifted his front feet off the ground, 
and ran on his two back legs. The children laughed and 
laughed as they watched him almost flying over the 
ground. 

“Lizards are interesting,” said Fred. “I like them.” 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


87 


“Yes, and the better you know them the more you will 
like them," said Uncle Jack. “There are many kinds of 
lizards in the United States, but there is only one that 
is poisonous. That is a big ugly one that lives in New 
Mexico and Arizona. It is called the Gila Monster. Some 
lizards live on the ground and hide under rocks like this 
one we just saw. Others live in the trees and can climb 
as well as squirrels." 

“Did you ever have one for a pet, Uncle Jack?" asked 
Buddy. 

“Oh, yes, I have had several. Most of them became 
so tame that they never tried to bite. They ate flies, 
beetles, and grasshoppers from my fingers." 

“Do they live to be very old?" Marylee asked. 

“I have a friend that has had one for seven years," 
Uncle Jack replied. “She keeps it in her house. She 
feeds it insects in the summer. When insects are scarce 
during the winter, she feeds it a bit of egg from a medi¬ 
cine dropper." 

“I wish I could have one for a pet," said Marylee. 

“You may have one when you are a little older," said 
Uncle Jack. 





QUEER ANIMALS 

There is a pleasure in the pathless xvoods. 

Lord Byron 




A POCKET FULL OF BABIES 


“Oh, Uncle Jack! Look, over there among the trees! 
What is that walking on the ground?” Marylee cried. 

“I see it,” said Fred. “It looks like a big gray cat. But 
it is not a cat; it has a long nose.” 

“Look at those things on its back,” exclaimed Bess. “It 
is coming this way. Let's hide behind some brush; so 
we can see it better.” 

They all hid. 

“Oh!” whispered Bess. “I see what it is. It's Mother 
Opossum, with her babies on her back.” 

“I see six of them on one side,” counted Marylee. 

“And there are five or six on the other side,” said 
Buddy. “They are holding on to her hair with their feet 
and mouths, and their heads are in a row along her 
back.” 

“Mother Opossum is taking her babies out for a ride 
while she hunts for her dinner,” said Uncle Jack, very 
quietly. “She does not often go hunting in the daytime. 
She likes to hunt at night; for she can see in the dark 
as well as a cat.” 

Mother Opossum stopped to smell the ground. She 
scratched under some dead leaves, and grabbed some¬ 
thing with her foot. Then she put it to her mouth and 
ate it. 


91 


92 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“What did she find to eat?” asked Fred. 

“She must have found a nice fat insect,” answered 
Uncle Jack. “That is what she eats most of the time.” 

“Do you think that we could catch her?” asked Buddy. 

“Perhaps,” answered Uncle Jack. “But be careful 
not to hurt her or her babies.” 

“But will she hurt us?” asked Fred. “I don't want 
her to bite me.” 

“She cannot bite you if you catch her by the tail,” said 
Uncle Jack. 

“But don't you think it will hurt Mother Opossum to 
pick her up by the tail?” asked Marylee. “I know it 
hurts cats and dogs to pull their tails.” 

“It will not hurt her,” replied Uncle Jack. “Her tail 
is very strong. She often uses it when she climbs trees, 
and sometimes she wraps it around a limb and hangs 
with her head down.” 

“That is the way monkeys use their tails,” said Buddy. 
“But monkeys have hair on their tails, and Mrs. Opos¬ 
sum's tail is smooth like a rat’s.” 

“We must hurry if we are going to catch her before 
she gets away,” said Fred. 

Away they ran after Mother Opossum. She did not 
wait for them. She took one look at those big boys run¬ 
ning toward her. Then she turned and scampered 
through the trees. The babies did not make a noise, but 
clung tightly to their mother's sides. 

When Uncle Jack came up to the children, they were 
standing around a big pile of brush. 

“She — went — in — there,” panted Buddy. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


93 



After they had rested a little while, Fred said, “Let’s 
move the brush and find her.” 

The children went to work. Fred lifted the last arm¬ 
ful, and there lay Mother Opossum curled up with her 
eyes shut, and her teeth showing between her lips. She 
did not move the least bit, nor open her eyes. 

“You boys have killed her,” said Marylee, about to 
cry. Fred and Buddy looked as if they were sorry. 

“We didn’t even touch her,” Buddy exclaimed. 

Uncle Jack laughed. 

“Don’t look so unhappy,” he said. “She isn’t hurt.” 

“But she is dead, Uncle Jack,” declared Bess. “Her 









94 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


eyes are shut, and she does not even move her toes.” 

“Mother Opossum is playing that she is dead, so that 
you will go away and leave her alone. Step back a little 
way and keep very still. Now watch her.” 

They stood and watched. Soon one eye opened slowly. 
Then a foot moved gently. 

“Oh, she is alive!” cried both the girls, as they ran to 
her again. Mother Opossum saw them coming, and 
closed her eyes quickly. 

“But where are her babies?” asked Marylee. 

The children looked at each other with eyes wide open 
in surprise. They had forgotten all about the baby 
opossums when they thought the mother was dead. 

“I wonder where they are,” said Fred, as he picked up 
a stick and began to hunt among the dead leaves for 
them. The other children helped in the hunt. They looked 
and looked, but no baby opossums did they find. Uncle 
Jack did not say anything while the children were hunt¬ 
ing, but his face was all smiles. 

Finally, he said, “I know where they are.” 

“Do tell us, please.” 

“Buddy, when you have a treasure that you do not 
want to lose, what do you do with it?” 

“I put it in my pocket.” 

“And that is just what Mother Opossum does with 
her baby treasures.” 

“But she doesn’t have a pocket.” 

“Oh, yes, she does. I will show you.” 

He picked up Mother Opossum by the tail and carried 
her over to a grassy place where they could sit down. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 95 

She did not even open her eyes when Uncle Jack picked 
her up. After they sat down, Uncle Jack turned Mother 
Opossum over on her back. 

“What is that on her stomach?" asked Bess. 

“That is her pocket full of treasures/' said Uncle Jack. 

Just then a sharp little face with bright eyes peeped 
at them through an opening in Mother Opossum's skin. 

The girls clapped their hands and laughed with joy. 
The baby jerked its head back inside. 

“Oh, do let us take one out of the pocket, Uncle Jack," 
begged Marylee. 

“Yes, please do," begged Bess. 

Uncle Jack took out one of the babies and put it on 
Marylee's hand. 

At first, the little thing was frightened, but Marylee 
held her hand very still. Soon the baby seemed to think 
that Marylee was a friend. It stood on its feet and walked 
around on her hand. She put one finger of her other 
hand down by the baby opossum. The little tail wrapped 
around her finger and held on tightly. Marylee raised 
her finger, but the little opossum did not let go. Higher 
and higher Marylee lifted it until the opossum was hang¬ 
ing with its head down and its feet waving in the air. 

“See its funny little front feet!" cried Bess. “They 
have a thumb and four pink fingers almost like a baby's 
hand." 

Marylee put the opossum down in her lap. It made a 
queer noise almost like a puppy trying to bark. 

“Why does it make that noise?" asked Bess. 


96 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“I think it is lonesome and wants to get back to its 
mother/’ said Uncle Jack. 

Marylee put it on Mother Opossum near the pocket. 
It quickly found the pocket and crawled inside with its 
brothers and sisters. Uncle Jack then laid Mother Opos¬ 
sum on the ground, and he and the children went off 
through the woods. They looked back to see what Mother 
Opossum was doing. She was walking off toward the 
brush with her babies. 


AN ADVENTURE WITH A SKUNK 


“Hist!” said Uncle Jack, in a low voice to the children, 
as they crept through some brush. “Don't talk. Don't 
make any noise. I want you to see something that I am 
seeing.” 

They stopped when Uncle Jack did, and peeped over 
some brush. He told them to come closer and look. He 
was pointing at something that was moving. 

“What can it be?” whispered Marylee. “It looks like 
a big black and white cat. Do cats come out here, Uncle 
Jack?” 

“I know what it is!” said Buddy, who was very much 
excited. “It is Mother Skunk and her family of little 
ones.” 

“Good boy,” whispered Uncle Jack, as he patted Buddy 
on the back. “That is the way to use your eyes.” 

Mother Skunk had come much nearer by this time. 
Her long hair was very black. 

“Is that a white cap on her head, and two ribbons 
down her back?” asked Bess. 

“It does look like a cap with ribbons,” whispered Uncle 
Jack. “But it is only a spot of white hair on top of her 
head and two stripes of white hair on her back.” 

“What a pretty tail!” said Buddy. 

Her tail was very beautiful and bushy, almost black, 
97 


98 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


with a few white hairs in it. Sometimes she held it over 
her back, and sometimes almost straight out behind her. 

“Aren't the little fellows cunning!” said Marylee. 

There were three of them, and they looked and acted 
just like Mother Skunk. But they were much smaller. 
She and her babies came to a flat rock among the trees 
near Uncle Jack and the children. She turned the rock 
over quickly with one front foot. She slapped her other 
front foot down on a big black beetle that had been hiding 
underneath it. The baby skunks rushed up and chased 
several other insects that tried to get away. Then Mother 
Skunk turned over other rocks, and she and her babies 
ate the insects they found. 

“What are they saying to each other?” asked Fred. 

“They seem to be very, very happy,” answered Uncle 
Jack. “Now let's see what Mother Skunk will do when 
she is angry. I shall be careful to throw this stick so 
that it will not hurt her or her babies.” 

He threw the stick near the skunks. Mother Skunk 
stopped and looked all around. He then threw another 
stick. She raised her tail over her back until the end 
nearly touched her head. She looked around again and 
again, trying to find out where the sticks were coming 
from. 

“See how bushy her tail is. now, and how she holds it 
over her back!” said Uncle Jack, in a low voice. “That 
is the way she always does when she is angry.” 

He threw a larger stick. This time it bounced and hit 
her. She put her nose down between her front feet for 
a short time. Then she looked up. How angry she was! 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


99 



Her hair stood straight out from her body. She stamped 
her feet on the ground so hard that they could hear her 
thump, thump! She scratched the grass. The little skunks 
fluffed up their hair and raised their tails over their 
backs. They did not seem to know what it was all about, 
but they were doing just as Mother Skunk was doing. 
They were so funny that Marylee laughed out loud. 
Mother Skunk heard Marylee, and suddenly saw her. 
Then she started in a run for Marylee. Her babies fol¬ 
lowed behind. 

“Run!” cried Uncle Jack. “Run for the car.” He 
pushed the children forward and ran after them. Then 







100 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


they smelled such a bad odor! They did not stop run¬ 
ning until they reached their car. By that time they 
could see the skunks no longer. 

“We were certainly lucky to have kept out of reach 
of that angry mother,” laughed Uncle Jack, as they 
started off. 


A PET IN A SHELL 


The children were helping Uncle Jack put away the 
lunch things in the car when Fred suddenly cried, “Look, 
everybody! Isn't that a Box Tortoise and her babies 
walking through the brush yonder?" 

“Let's catch them!" shouted Buddy. 

“Wait a minute!" said Uncle Jack. “Don't be in such 
a hurry. That can't be a Box Tortoise because they never 
go walking with their babies. They just lay their eggs 
in the ground and then go off and forget them. When 
the eggs hatch, the babies have to take care of them¬ 
selves. No, that must be something else." 

“I can see they have shells on their backs," remarked 
Fred. 

“We may be able to get close enough to see what they 
are if we walk quietly and keep behind the brush," said 
Uncle Jack. 

Soon the children were peeping over a bush near the 
animals. They had shells, but not like the box tortoise. 
These shells grew in rings so that the animals could bend 
their backs. 

“It's Mother Armadillo and her family," whispered 
Uncle Jack. “See how they stick their noses into the 
ground at almost every step they take. They are hunt¬ 
ing for insects and earthworms." 

101 


102 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


One of the babies stopped and dug a little hole with 
his front feet. He put his nose down into the hole and 
caught something in his mouth. He began to pull. It was 
a big earthworm. Soon another baby ran up and tried 
to take it away from him. 

“Fred, you and Buddy may catch one of the babies if 
you want to,” continued Uncle Jack. “But you will have 
to run fast to do it.” 

The boys ran out from behind the brush. Mother 
Armadillo and the babies went scampering away, but 
Fred caught one of them. He held it by the tail, because 
he was afraid it would bite. 

“It will not bite you,” said Uncle Jack, as he took it 
and held it in his arms. “Armadillos don't have any 
teeth in the front part of their mouths; so they can't 
bite. The teeth with which they chew their food are in 
the back part of their mouths.” 

“There are nine rings of shell across its back,” said 
Marylee, counting. 

“And rings all along its tail, too,” added Bess. 

“That is so he can roll himself into a ball to keep from 
being hurt,” said Uncle Jack. “He has a shell on the 
front of his head, too. The shell on this baby is not very 
hard, but it will be harder when he is grown.” 

“What big claws he has!” exclaimed Marylee. “He 
must be a digger for insects and worms.” 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack; “armadillos also dig holes in 
the ground to live in. They stay there during the day 
and come out to feed at night. These babies got so hun¬ 
gry they couldn't wait for dark.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


103 



















104 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Let’s feed this one.” 

“Well, he might eat a grasshopper or a beetle.” 

The children raced off to catch one. Marylee brought 
back a big grasshopper. The baby armadillo was afraid 
at first and would not eat. When Marylee held it close 
to his nose, it must have smelt good to him. He opened 
his mouth and took it. After he swallowed it, he put his 
front feet on Marylee’s hand and smelled around as if 
he were trying to find another one. 

“Uncle Jack, he is so nice. May we keep him?” begged 
Marylee. “We can take him home and feed him all the 
time.” 

“It will not be easy to catch insects for him every 
day,” said Uncle Jack. 

“Won’t he eat fresh meat?” 

“You will have to teach him to eat it. I once trained 
one to eat fresh meat. I mixed the meat with earth¬ 
worms. He liked earthworms as much as you like candy. 
Each time I fed him I put in fewer earthworms with the 
meat, but he always ate both. Then I tried some meat 
with just a very little earthworm. He soon found that 
the meat itself was good.” 

“I’ll dig the earthworms, and we’ll soon have him 
eating meat,” said Buddy. 

“Armadillo is too long a name for him,” said Marylee. 
“Let’s call him Arma.” 

“That will be a good name,” Uncle Jack said as they 
started to the car with the new pet. 


THE CHAMPION DIGGER 


“Look at all those piles of sand!” said Bess. Uncle 
Jack stopped the car, and he and the children got out. 
“Who has been playing here, Uncle Jack?” 

“These little piles of sand all in a row do look as if 
some one had been playing,” he replied. “Can’t any of 
you guess who made them?” 

“I can’t guess who did it,” said Fred. “I can’t even 
see where they got the sand. There are no holes where 
they dug it up.” 

Buddy pushed one of the piles aside with his foot. He 
found a little round hole in the ground filled with fresh 
sand. 

“This looks as if it had just been filled up,” said Buddy. 
“I am going to open it.” 

The hole was big enough for him to get his hand into 
it. Deeper and deeper he dug, until there was no more 
loose sand. He pushed his arm far into the hole. 

“Uncle Jack, this hole runs back farther than I can 
reach. Some animal must have dug it and made those 
piles.” 

“You are right, Buddy,” said Uncle Jack. “These 
holes and piles of sand are made by an animal. He 
spends most of his time digging under the ground. He 
has to get the earth out of his way; so he digs a hole up 
105 


106 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


to the top of the ground. Then he pushes the sand up 
through it.” 

“He must be the champion digger,” said Buddy. “Just 
see all these piles. There are twenty-six of them.” 

“He digs for his dinner,” said Uncle Jack. “He feeds 
on the roots of plants. He digs until he comes to a root 
that he likes. If he isn’t hungry, he cuts off the root 
and puts it into one of the little storerooms he has. There 
he keeps it until he is hungry. When he wants to go to 
another place, he digs through the ground to it.” 

“What’s his name?” asked Buddy. 

“He is a Pocket Gopher,” answered Uncle Jack. “I see 
a fresh pile of sand near that bush. He may be working 
there now. Pocket gophers usually work at night, but 
sometimes they dig in the daytime when the sun is not 
shining. If we get behind the bush and are quiet, per¬ 
haps we can see this one.” 

They hid behind a thick bush and peeped over the top. 
They saw a pile of fresh sand with a hole in the center 
of it. Then they saw some sand coming up out of the 
hole. The sand came up higher and higher, and behind 
the sand was the brown head of the gopher. He was 
holding his two front feet with their big claws in front 
of his face, and he was pushing the sand with them. He 
came out of the hole and pushed the sand away. Then he 
went back. 

“Oh, he is a funny animal!” exclaimed Buddy. “He 
looks like a rat, but he has a bigger head.” 

“Did you see his little short tail?” asked Bess. 

“Those are the biggest claws that I ever saw,” said 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


107 



Fred. “No wonder he is the champion digger when he 
has claws like those.” 

“Did you see the loose skin on the sides of his head, and 
his big teeth?” asked Buddy. “He must be a good fighter 
with such big teeth.” 

“He is a good fighter,” said Uncle Jack. “He doesn’t 
like company. He will not let another gopher stay near 
him. He wants to be all alone. He needs those big teeth 
to cut off the roots of plants. That skin that you saw on 
the sides of his head makes his pockets.” 

“Are they real pockets that he can carry things in?” 
asked Marylee. 




108 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Yes, they are real pockets, and in them he carries 
pieces of roots when he takes them to his storeroom,” 
answered Uncle Jack. “Those pockets give him the name 
of Pocket Gopher.” 

“Let’s look into his hole,” said Buddy. 

But they could not do so, because when they came to 
it, they saw that the gopher had filled it with sand. 

“When did he do that?” asked Bess. 

“He heard us talking,” said Uncle Jack, “and he closed 
his door.” 


BIRD'S NEST OR WHAT? 


“Those bushes along the fence would be a good place 
for a bird's nest," said Uncle Jack. 

“Come on," said Buddy. “Let's see if we can find one 
there." 

They began looking in the bushes. Soon Marylee called, 
“I have found one! Come and see it." 

“That is a funny one," said Buddy. “It isn't open on 
top like the nests of other birds. It looks like a round 
ball of grass. How does the bird get into it?" 

“I see!" answered Marylee, who had gone around the 
bush to see the other side of the nest. “Here is a little 
hole in it on this side. That must be the doorway. It isn't 
any larger than my thumb." 

“I see something moving on the inside," said Buddy, 
who was now peeping through the hole. 

“Oh! Did you ever see anything so cunning?" said 
Marylee, as a little mouse poked its head out through 
the hole in the nest and looked at them. Its tiny black 
eyes shone like beads. It wriggled its whiskers as if to 
say, “What are you doing here?" 

The little face looked so funny that the girls laughed 
aloud. Quick as a wink the mouse jerked its head back 
out of sight. 


109 


110 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“That is Mrs. Harvest Mouse and her nest,” said 
Uncle Jack. 

“I didn't know that mice built nests like birds do,” 
said Fred. 

“Many kinds of mice make their nests in the ground,” 
said Uncle Jack. “The Harvest Mouse makes its nest in 
tall grass or bushes like this one has. Sometimes it finds 
an old bird's nest and makes that into the kind it likes.” 

“Do you think that Mrs. Harvest Mouse has some 
babies in her nest?” asked Marylee. 

“She may have,” answered Uncle Jack. 

“I am going to find out,” said Marylee, starting to 
push through the branches. Mrs. Harvest Mouse ran out 
of her nest when Marylee shook the bush, but she did 
not go far. She ran through the top of the bush like a 
squirrel. She stopped a little distance away, and sat on 
a branch while she watched Marylee. She was very much 
afraid; so she soon jumped down to the ground and hid 
in the grass. 

Marylee put her finger through the hole into the nest. 

“Uncle Jack, there are some babies in the nest!” she 
cried. “I can feel them. They are soft and warm. May 
I take one out so that we can see it?” 

“Yes, if you are careful not to hurt it. You must put 
it back before it gets cold,” replied Uncle Jack. 

Marylee took out one of the baby mice and held it in 
her hand. It was a tiny thing, soft and pink. 

“It can't see,” said Marylee. “It is blind. It can't open 
its eyes!” 

“The babies of many animals do not have their eyes 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


111 



open until they are several days old,” remarked Uncle 
Jack. “The eyes of this baby mouse will open when it is 
a few days older. You had better put it back now before 
it gets cold. I am sure the little mother wants us to go 
and leave her babies alone.” 

Marylee carefully put the baby mouse back into the 
nest. 

“Why is it called a Harvest Mouse?” asked Bess. 

“The word harvest means to gather seeds, like wheat 
and oats and corn, that are growing in the fields,” an¬ 
swered Uncle Jack. “We harvest, or gather, seeds. Then 
we take them to the mill where they are ground into 




112 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


flour or meal, or we store them in barns. Some of these 
mice live where the ground is covered with snow all win¬ 
ter. All the seeds are covered, and the mice cannot find 
food. They gather, or harvest, the seeds of grasses and 
weeds in the fall, and put the seeds away in their nests. 
Then they eat them during the winter. That is why they 
are called Harvest Mice. Now, the mice that live where 
there is little snow do not need to put away seeds for the 
winter. They can always find them on the grasses or 
the weeds. But still they are called Harvest Mice.” 


THE WHISTLER 

“Uncle Jack, I saw something I must ask you about,” 
said Bess. 

“What did you see?” asked Uncle Jack. 

“I don’t know,” replied Bess. “It looked like a stick 
standing straight up from the ground. It was about six 
inches high, and as thick as three of my fingers. But it 
made a queer whistling sound and then it was gone; so 
I know that it wasn’t a stick.” 

“Let us walk back and look for it,” said Uncle Jack. 

“There it is!” exclaimed Bess, pointing. 

“That’s only a stick,” said Buddy. 

“No, it isn’t,” remarked Bess. “Didn’t you hear it 
whistle then? That is some kind of an animal.” 

“You are right, Bess,” said Uncle Jack. “It is a little 
animal, and he is called the Striped Gopher by many 
people. That is not a very good name for him, because 
he is not at all like the Pocket Gopher which digs under 
the ground all the time. But I call him the Striped 
Gopher, anyway, because his real name is too long and 
hard for you to remember.” 

“What is his real name?” asked Fred. 

“The Striped Spermophile,” replied Uncle Jack, smil¬ 
ing. 


113 


114 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Whew! That is a long name/’ said Fred. “I am going 
to call him the Striped Gopher, too.” 

“What makes him look like a stick, Uncle Jack?” asked 
Marylee. 

“He does look very much like a stick when you are not 
close to him, because his head is the same size as the 
rest of his body. His ears are so small that you cannot 
see them, unless you are quite near. Then he holds his 
front legs so close to his body that you cannot see them. 
And, too, he stands up very straight.” 

“May we get closer to see him better?” asked Bess. 

“We can get behind that bush there without scaring 
him if we are very quiet,” replied Uncle Jack. 

“I can see him well now,” said Marylee. “He has rows 
of little white spots down his back. See how bright his 
tiny black eyes are!” 

“There he goes,” said Buddy, as the little animal sud¬ 
denly dropped his front feet to the ground and raced 
through the grass to his hole. 

“Let’s see where he lives,” said Marylee. 

“Wait just a minute,” said Uncle Jack, holding Mary¬ 
lee back. “If you watch the hole a while, you may see 
him again.” 

They stood watching for a few minutes. 

Then Marylee whispered, “I see his head.” 

He stuck his head out of his hole and looked at them 
with his bright eyes. Then he whistled again. 

“Why does he whistle when he sees us?” asked Buddy. 

“That is the way he tells all the other striped gophers 
that there are strangers near,” replied Uncle Jack. 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


115 



“When they hear that whistle, they take warning. I think 
this one will not come out again while we are so near. 
Let us look at his hole now/' 

They went to the little round hole in the ground. 
“Does it go down into the ground very far?” asked 
Fred. 

“Yes, it goes down a long way,” replied Uncle Jack. 
“At the end is a little room where he lives. He also has 
some other rooms where he puts seeds to eat in the winter 
time; for he gathers seeds, too, like the Harvest Mouse.” 









A FLYING MAMMAL 


“Uncle Jack, here is the queerest creature up in this 
bush,” called Marylee. “I don’t know what it is. Come 
and see if it is alive.” 

Uncle Jack came to see what it was that Marylee had 
found. He pushed aside the leaves, so that he could look 
into the bush. “A fine treasure, Marylee,” he said. “That 
is a bat hanging by its toes and having a quiet sleep.” 

“Is it the kind of bat that we see flying around in the 
evening?” asked Marylee. 

“Yes,” answered Uncle Jack. “It works hard at night 
and likes to sleep during the day. Some kinds of bats 
get into old barns, houses, or caves to sleep. But this 
kind likes fresh air; so it goes to sleep in a bush or tree.” 

“I don’t see how it can hang by its feet all day,” said 
Fred. “I get tired in just a little while when I hang by 
my knees.” 

“The bat doesn’t get tired because it has strong toes, 
whose sharp claws are like little hooks. It fastens these 
toes around a twig and hangs there without ever getting 
tired.” 

“Oh, it has waked up now,” cried Marylee. “See, it 
is making faces at me. Isn’t it the funniest thing you 
ever saw? It must be trying to tell us to go away and 
let it sleep. Look at its sharp little teeth!” 

116 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


117 



“It needs those sharp little teeth to catch and eat mos¬ 
quitoes, gnats, and moths when it is flying around in the 
air and getting its supper,” explained Uncle Jack. 

“This bat has wings like a bird,” observed Marylee. 
“But its teeth are like a mouse’s, and it has fur instead 
of feathers. Why! it even has ears. Isn’t this the queer¬ 
est bird, Uncle Jack?” 

“It does fly like a bird,” he agreed; “but it isn’t one. 
It is a flying mammal.” 

“Why do you call it a mammal?” asked Buddy. “I 
never heard of a mammal before.” 

“All animals which feed their babies milk such as the 








118 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


cat, the dog, the rabbit, and the cow are called mammals,” 
explained Uncle Jack. “The mother bat flies, but she 
also feeds her babies milk; so we call her a flying 
mammal.” 

“Urn surely glad you told us, Uncle Jack, what a bat 
really is,” said Marylee. “We are looking at its back 
now, aren't we? I want to see what the other side looks 
like.” 

She walked around the bush and peeped through the 
leaves to see the under side of the bat. “Come around 
here,” she cried. “Aren’t those two little bats hanging 
there on the big one?” 

Uncle Jack and the children walked around the bush 
where they could see, too. “You are right, Marylee,” 
Uncle Jack said. “Those are baby bats. The mother bat 
carries them like that most of the time.” 

“Don’t they fall off when she flies?” asked Bess. 

“No,” he answered. “They hang to her fur with their 
feet.” 

“They must have a lovely time riding with their mother 
when she flies about!” said Marylee. “I almost wish I 
could be a baby bat.” 

“Do you see the little tent in which she keeps the babies 
dry when it rains?” asked Uncle Jack. 

“Where? I don’t see it,” said Marylee, looking eagerly. 

“The mother has some loose skin fastened around her 
tail and to her hind legs,” explained Uncle Jack. “Can 
you see how it is folded down over her babies like a 
tent?” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


119 



“Oh, yes, I see it now,” said Marylee. “I am so glad I 
found a sleeping bat. I have seen them flying many times, 
but I never knew they were so interesting.” 



















FEATHERED FLIGHTS 


Hast thou named all the birds tvithout a gun 
Loved the wood-rose , and left it on its stalk ? 


O, be my friend , and teach me to be thine! 


R. W. Emerson 









A BIG-HEADED FISHERMAN 


“What is making that noise?” asked Bess. They all 
stopped to listen to a sound from up the creek. 

“Tat-tat-tat-tat,” came the sound so fast that it was 
almost a rattle. 

“What is it, Uncle Jack?” asked Bess. 

‘Til not tell you,” said Uncle Jack, smiling. “It will 
be a nice surprise when you see it. Let us go back and 
sit quietly on the bank of the creek and watch.” 

“Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat,” came the sound closer. 

“Here it comes,” whispered Marylee. “Why, it's a 
bird!” 

They saw a queer bird flying down the creek toward 
them. Just before he got to them, he lit on a dead branch 
of a tree that hung out over the water. 

“What a big head and bill he has!” said Buddy. “They 
are almost as big as the rest of his body. What made 
his head grow so large?” 

“Just watch and you may find out for yourself,” an¬ 
swered Uncle Jack. 

“Oh! Look!” said Bess. “He is falling off the branch 
into the water!” 

Down fell the little bird, almost straight toward the 
water. He went head first, not even using his wings. 
Splash, into the creek he plunged. 

123 


124 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Buddy! Fred! Wade out and get him before he 
drowns !” cried the girls. 

“Sit still and see what happens,” quietly said Uncle 
Jack. Quickly the little bird came to the top of the water 
and flew up to the branch. 

“Look! He has a fish in his bill,” cried Buddy. “Why, 
he didn't fall off that branch; he dived for that fish.” 

“Yes,” explained Uncle Jack. “That bird is a real 
fisherman. He needs a big head and strong bill to catch 
and to hold the fish. He is called the Kingfisher because 
he is such a good fisherman. The feathers standing up 
on the top of his head look like a king's crown. That is 
why he is called king. The dark feathers on his breast 
look like a belt. So we say he is the Belted Kingfisher.” 

“What is he trying to do now? Is he trying to kill the 
fish?” asked Fred. 

“Yes. Watch him and see how he does it!” 

The kingfisher held the fish by the tail, and beat it 
against the branch. Whack! Whack! Then he stopped 
and felt of the body of the fish with his bill. He did not 
think that it was dead; so he took hold of the tail again. 
Whack! Whack! Whack! He pounded it again and 
again until he was sure it was dead. Then he took it into 
his mouth and swallowed it head first. 

“Won't the fish bones hurt him?" Bess asked anxiously. 

“No,” replied Uncle Jack. “He is used to them. After 
a while he will eject, or as we might say throw up, the 
bones. Then he will be ready for another fish.” 

“Such a queer bird ought to have an interesting nest 
and babies,” said Marylee. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


125 



















































126 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“The belted kingfishers do not build their nests in 
trees as many other birds do/’ continued Uncle Jack. 
“They dig a hole in the side of a bank near the water.” 

“How can they dig?” asked Fred. 

“They dig with their strong bills. Two of their toes 
grow together. It may be that those toes help to push 
the dirt out of the hole. Those odd toes also may help 
kingfishers to swim. They feed their babies fish, and the 
babies eject the bones just as the old birds do. King¬ 
fishers are not very neat housekeepers. They leave the 
old fish bones in the nest. By the time the babies are ready 
to leave, the nest is almost full of bones.” 

“What queer birds!” said Bess. 

“Yes, they are,” agreed Uncle Jack, “and each family 
of kingfishers seems to have its own fishing waters. 
Two families never live near each other, and they fish 
only in their own part of the creek. 


BIRDS THAT EAT AS THEY FLY 


“Uncle Jack, what kind of birds are those flying over 
the creek ?” asked Buddy. He had been watching the 
birds as he and the other children sat on the bank eat¬ 
ing their lunch. “They just keep flying all the time,” he 
continued. 

“Those are Cliff Swallows,” replied Uncle Jack. “There 
is one high in the air. See how fast he flies. There, he 
almost stops. There, he darts off to one side. Now he is 
dropping nearly straight down. He is flying up again. 
He is turning around now, and coming back just above 
the water.” 

“Why does he fly here, there, and everywhere like 
that?” asked Bess. “Is he playing?” 

“No, indeed. He is getting his dinner of the insects 
that are flying in the air all the time. The swallow flies 
along until he sees an insect, then he darts after it. Some 
of the insects can fly very fast. Then it is a real race, 
and the swallow has to turn this way and that before 
he can catch one. When you see him suddenly turn to 
one side, you may be sure he has seen an insect and is 
trying to catch it.” 

“But, Uncle Jack, don't they ever get tired, and stop?” 
asked Buddy. 


127 


128 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Yes, but not very often/' answered Uncle Jack. “They 
have very tiny feet that are not strong like the cardi¬ 
nal's or the mocking bird's. It is hard for them to sit on 
the large branch of a tree. When they do stop, they 
choose a dead twig, a wire fence, or a telephone wire." 

“Oh, did you see that swallow?" cried Marylee. “He 
flew down so close that he splashed the water. Perhaps 
he will be more careful next time." 

“He wanted to do that," said Uncle Jack. “He was 
getting a drink." 

“How could he get a drink that way?" asked Marylee. 

“He flies very close to the water. Then he opens his 
mouth so that the under part of his bill touches the 
water. He is flying so fast that the water splashes up 
into his throat, and he swallows it." 

“That is a queer way to get a drink of water," said 
Marylee. 

“Uncle Jack, you said that those cliff swallows ate 
insects," said Fred. “But I see two of them on the 
ground. They are on the other side of the creek close 
to some soft mud, and I can see them eating the mud." 

“No, Fred. They are not eating mud," laughed Uncle 
Jack. “They pick up the mud in their bills. Then they 
carry it away to make their nests. The cliff swallows 
use mud plaster for building nests. The nest is round 
with a hole on one side for a door. Do you see that steep 
cliff yonder beside the creek?" Uncle Jack pointed to a 
rock cliff higher than a house. Near the top, it hung over 
like the eaves of a roof. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


129 































130 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“The swallows are building their nests underneath 
that overhanging rock,” continued Uncle Jack. “That is 
why they are called cliff swallows.” 

“Let's see if we can find the nests,” said Fred. They 
ran to the cliff. They saw the odd round nests made of 
mud with a hole on one side. The nests were high up 
and right under the rocks that stuck out like a roof. 

One of the nests was only half made. While they were 
looking, a swallow lit upon it. They could see the mud 
in the bird's mouth. The swallow put the mud on the 
edge of the wall which he was building, and then flew 
away. 

“Do the swallows make a bed inside of the nest?” 
asked Bess. “And what do the eggs look like?” 

“They usually make a bed of a few pieces of grass,” 
answered Uncle Jack. “And their little eggs are white, 
speckled with brown.” 

“Do all swallows build round nests with a hole in the 
side for a door, like these cliff swallows?” asked Fred. 

“No,” said Uncle Jack. “There are different kinds of 
swallows. Some of them make mud nests that are open 
at the top. One kind of swallow makes a hole in a bank, 
and builds its nest in the hole. They are called Bank 
Swallows.” 


BUSY BIRDS 


“See that beautiful little bird sitting in the tree! It 
is blue all over its back and wings, and even its head 
is blue,” said Bess. “But see what a pretty dull red on 
its breast!” 

“There is another one in that tree,” said Buddy, point¬ 
ing. “But that one is not so brightly colored.” 

“They are Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird,” Uncle Jack told 
the children. “You girls wear pretty ribbons and dresses, 
and the boys do not care about such things. But it is 
Mr. Bluebird that wears the pretty bright colors. He 
dresses up as fine as any girl, but Mrs. Bluebird wears 
just a plain work dress. They came back from their 
vacation just a little while ago.” 

“Birds don’t take a vacation, do they?” asked Buddy, 
very much surprised. 

“Yes, they do,” said Uncle Jack, as he smiled. “Mr. 
and Mrs. Bluebird work nearly all summer while you 
are playing. Then they go south for the fall and winter. 
The first thing they do when they get back is to find a 
place to build a nest. If you were a bird, where would 
you build your nest, so that it would be dry and warm, 
and where cats, snakes, and bad little boys could not 
find it?” 


131 


132 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“I would put my nest up high in a tree where there 
were many leaves,” answered Buddy. 

“That would be a good place,” said Uncle Jack. “Some 
birds do build their nests in just such places. But Mr. 
and Mrs. Bluebird do not. They want a better place. 
They hunt until they find a hole in an old dead stump 
or a fence post. They like a hole which some woodpecker 
made last year with his strong bill. Down in the bottom 
of such a hole the bluebirds make their nest.” 

“Let's see if we can find an old woodpecker's hole,” 
said Marylee. 

“I will find the first one,” said Buddy. Off they ran 
to search for one. 

They hunted for a long time. At last Fred called, 
“Here! Come here! I have found one!” 

He had found a little round hole in a dead tree. 

“Look at the Bluebirds,” said Bess. “They have come 
over here, too, and they are watching us, as if they did 
not want us to look into that hole. Do you think it is 
their nest, Uncle Jack?” 

“It may be,” answered Uncle Jack. “If it is, we must 
be very careful not to hurt the eggs or the babies.” 

“Oh, Fred! Do hurry and see what is in there. We 
can't wait,” cried both girls. Fred climbed up on Buddy's 
back and looked into the hole. Then he jumped down to 
the ground. He was smiling. 

“It is the Bluebirds' nest,” he told them. “The babies 
are all covered with stubby feathers. It is dark in the 
hole, so that I could not see them at first.” 

Then each of the children climbed up and peeped into 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


133 




















134 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


the hole. After they had looked into the nest, Unde Jack 
said, “Let us sit down behind those bushes and see if 
Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird will bring something for their 
babies to eat.” 

Soon Mrs. Bluebird flew over to the hole. She peeped 
in to see if her babies were all right. Then she flew away. 
After a while she was back with a caterpillar. Just as 
she left the nest, Mr. Bluebird came with a grasshopper. 
Then Mrs. Bluebird brought some kind of insect, but 
they could not tell what it was. Again and again they 
saw the birds come back to their nest, and each time they 
had some kind of insect in their bills. 

“Do they work as hard as that all summer?” asked 
Buddy. 

“Yes, they work almost all summer just the way you 
see them working today,” said Uncle Jack. 

“These babies will soon be big enough to fly away,” 
said Fred. “What will Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird do then?” 

“They will begin to raise another family,” answered 
Uncle Jack. 

“What a great number of insects they have to catch 
to feed two families!” said Marylee. “I am glad that I 
am not a bluebird and have to work as hard as that.” 

“I don't think that they are unhappy because they 
have so much work to do. Did you hear Mr. Bluebird 
stop long enough to sing that little song just then?” 
asked Uncle Jack. “You see they love their children, 
and they are happy in working for them. Your mothers 
are working for you nearly all the time, too. They cook 
good things for you to eat; they clean the dishes; they 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


135 


wash your clothes; they gather up your things from the 
floor; but they are happy because they love you, and like 
to do things for you." 

“It isn't hard to do things for people you love," said 
Fred. “But I am glad to know that Mr. and Mrs. Blue¬ 
bird will have a vacation after working so hard all 
summer." 


A BIRD THAT FOOLED THE CHILDREN 


As Uncle Jack and the children were walking under 
a low tree, a bird flew to the ground just in front of 
them. It tried to fly away, but one wing dragged as if 
it were broken. The bird fluttered in the air a little 
way, then it fell to the ground again. 

“Look at that poor little turtledove!” cried Marylee. 
“Its wing is broken.” 

“May we catch it?” asked Bess. 

“Yes, if you can,” answered Uncle Jack, laughing. 

A little bird with a broken wing was not at all funny, 
but the children did not stop to ask Uncle Jack why he 
was laughing. They ran after the bird. 

Several times Marylee thought she had it. Buddy fell 
down and Bess fell on top of him. The bird kept just a 
little ahead of them. Suddenly it rose into the air and 
flew away. The children watched it fly to a tree; then 
they looked at each other. 

“It — it was just fooling us. It wasn't hurt at all,” 
said Marylee. 

“It played a good joke on us, all right,” said Buddy. 
“I wonder why.” 

“There is Uncle Jack back there by the tree, and he 
is laughing at us,” said Fred. “He knew the joke all 
the time.” 


136 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


137 














138 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


They walked back to Uncle Jack. “That little dove 
was a good actress,” said Uncle Jack. “She made you 
think she was hurt so badly that she could not fly. She 
hoped you would follow her.” 

“But I can’t see why she wanted us to follow her,” 
said Fred. 

“She wanted you to go away from this tree, and that 
was her way of getting you to do it,” explained Uncle 
Jack. “She is a mother turtledove, and she did not want 
you to find her nest on that branch over Marylee’s head.” 

They looked up. There was a nest. It was a very poor 
one, made of just a few sticks placed on a limb. Two 
baby turtledoves were sitting in the nest. The children 
could see them plainly from the ground. 

“The turtledove is not a fighting bird,” said Uncle 
Jack. “So when an enemy comes near, the mother bird 
acts as if she were hurt, and tries to get the enemy to 
follow her away from her nest.” 

“I didn't know that birds were as smart as that,” 
said Buddy. 

“What has become of the rest of her babies?” asked 
Marylee. “I see only two there. Do you suppose the 
others have fallen out of that little flat nest?” 

“No,” replied Uncle Jack. “She never has more than 
two babies at a time. She lays only two pure white eggs. 
When these babies are large enough to fly, she will raise 
another family, just as Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird do.” 

“Does the turtledove have to work as hard as the 
bluebirds do to find enough insects for her babies to eat?” 
asked Buddy. 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 139 

“No, she does not feed her babies insects,” Uncle Jack 
answered. 

“Does she feed them seeds ?” Fred asked. 

“No, she does not feed them seeds, either, when they 
are very young,” Uncle Jack again replied. 

“Well, then, does she feed them fish like the king¬ 
fisher, or mice like the owls?” demanded Marylee. 

“No, Marylee!” Uncle Jack smiled as he shook his 
head. “She feeds her babies milk.” 

“You must be joking, Uncle Jack,” said Buddy. 
“Surely, no bird makes milk the way cows and cats and 
dogs do. You said those animals were called mammals. 
Are turtledoves mammals, too?” 

“No, turtledoves and their relatives, the pigeons, are 
not mammals. They are birds. But they do feed their 
babies a kind of milk, called pigeon milk. The bottom of 
the bird's throat is enlarged and is called the crop. The 
milk is made in this crop. When the baby turtledove, or 
pigeon, is hungry, it puts its bill inside the mother's 
mouth. The mother bird makes the milk come up into 
her mouth where her baby bird may drink it.” 

“Is it like cow's milk?” asked Buddy. 

“It is almost like cow's milk except that it has no 
sugar in it,” replied Uncle Jack. Then he continued, 
“The doves and pigeons are the only birds that make 
milk for their babies. The old birds eat weed and grass 
seeds which they find on the ground. Sometimes they 


140 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


eat the grain in the farmer's field, and the farmer does 
net like that." 

“I never dreamed that the gentle little turtledove was 
so interesting," remarked Fred, as they continued on 
their way. 


A BIRD THAT IS A BUTCHER 


“What bird is that, Uncle Jack?” asked Fred, as he 
pointed to a bird sitting on a dead branch of a tree. 

“It looks like a mocking bird,” said Marylee. 

“No, it is not a mocking bird,” replied Uncle Jack. 
“That is a Shrike. That is a hard name to remember. 
There is another name for him which I like much bet¬ 
ter. He is also called a Butcher bird.” 

“Why is he called that?” asked Buddy. “A butcher is 
a man in a meat market. He keeps meat hanging in his 
ice box until we buy it.” 

Uncle Jack smiled as he answered, “Well, Buddy, birds 
do not sell meat, but this bird does hang his meat up like 
the butcher does. He catches grasshoppers, beetles, and 
mice. If he is hungry, he eats them right away. But if 
he is not, he does not throw them away. He carries them 
to a thorn bush and hangs them on the thorns. When 
he gets hungry, he can go back and eat them.” 

“Then butcher bird is a very good name for him,” 
said Bess. 

“He is so far away that I cannot see him very well,” 
said Buddy. “But I think I see a hook on the end of his 
upper bill.” 

“Yes, he does have a sharp hook on the end of his 
upper bill,” said Uncle Jack. “And he has something 
141 


142 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


almost like a sharp tooth on that upper bill, too. That 
sharp hook and tooth help him to tear into pieces the 
mice and insects that he catches.” 

“I don't like the butcher bird,” said Marylee. 

“Watch him turn his head,” said Uncle Jack. “He 
sees something now.” 

Suddenly the butcher bird left the dead branch. He 
flew almost to the ground. Then he fluttered his wings 
fast, but he did not move through the air. He seemed 
to be looking for something on the ground. 

“He saw a grasshopper light on the ground there,” 
said Uncle Jack. “The grasshopper looks so much like 
the gray earth that the butcher bird cannot always see 
it easily.” 

“There, he sees it!” said Buddy, as the butcher bird 
dropped down on the ground. They saw him trying to 
catch something. Then he flew up with a grasshopper 
in his bill. He lit in a bush nearby and seemed to be 
doing something there. 

“Let's see what he is about,” said Buddy. “Let's slip 
up behind the bush and watch him.” 

“It is a thorn bush,” said Marylee, as they came closer 
to the butcher bird. 

“I see the grasshopper on that thorn up there,” said 
Buddy. “The butcher bird did not eat it. He must have 
hung it up.” 

“There are two other grasshoppers,” whispered Mary¬ 
lee,” and a beetle, too. This must be his regular butcher 
shop.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


143 


The butcher bird heard them and flew away. Then 
they went up to the bush. 

“He has certain bushes where he hangs his meat,” said 
Uncle Jack. “Then he knows where to find food when 
he is hungry.” 

“Should we call the butcher bird one of our friends?” 
asked Buddy. 

“Yes,” replied Uncle Jack. “He catches very few lit¬ 
tle birds, but he does catch a great many insects and 
little animals that are not our friends.” 


A FIGHT IN THE AIR 


“Look, Marylee, at that beautiful bird on the telephone 
wire,” called Buddy. 

Marylee and the other children came running. “What 
a long tail he has!” she said. “Uncle Jack, come and see 
this bird. Did you ever see such a long tail? It looks 
like a pair of scissors. I wonder if he cuts things with it.” 

“I believe that he does,” said Buddy. “He opens and 
shuts his tail just as if he would like to cut something.” 

Uncle Jack, who had just walked up to them, laughed. 
“His tail does look like scissors,” he told them. “That is 
the reason this bird has been named the Scissor-tailed 
Flycatcher. But he does not use his tail for cutting. The 
long tail helps him to turn quickly, when he is catching 
insects on the wing.” 

“There he goes,” said Marylee, “flying after that big 
moth. My, how quickly he turns, and see how fast he 
flies!” 

“He caught it!” cried Buddy, as the scissor-tail flew 
back to the wire, where he ate the moth. 

“Why is he called flycatcher, when he catches moths?” 
asked Bess. 

“People used to think that the scissor-tails caught a 
great many flies; so they called them flycatchers,” re¬ 
plied Uncle Jack. “We know now that they catch moths 
144 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


145 
















































146 FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 

and beetles, too, and they seem to like grasshoppers bet¬ 
ter than anything else. Flycatcher is a very good name, 
after all, because they do catch things that fly, but most 
people, now, call them just scissor-tail. Their tails are 
so long that they can't walk on the ground very fast, but 
their tails help them greatly in flying. That is why they 
catch their food in the air instead of on the ground." 

“There is another one," said Buddy. “It is not so large 
as the first one, and it does not have such pretty red 
feathers under its wings. Could that be Mrs. Scissor- 
tail?" 

“Yes, you're right," replied Uncle Jack. “They may 
have a nest in one of these small trees." 

“Oh, let's see if we can find it," said Marylee. 

The children began hunting among the trees for the 
nest. 

“Here it is," shouted Fred, pointing upward. 

Uncle Jack and the others hurried up. Buddy climbed 
up into the small tree to look into the nest. 

“There are five eggs here," Buddy called down to 
them. “They are white with little brown spots all over 
them." 

Marylee wanted to see the eggs, too. She did not wait 
for Buddy to come down. She climbed up into the tree 
just as Buddy had. 

“Uncle Jack, the nest is made of many things," she 
said. “There is some grass, and a few stems of weeds. 
The weed stems have soft balls on them that look like 
fur." 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 147 

“Those are bunches of seed from the Poverty Weed,” 
her uncle told her. 

“There is some cotton all through the nest, too,” Mary- 
lee added. “The inside is lined with cotton. These birds 
like a soft nest, don’t they?” 

“Yes,” Uncle Jack answered. “They are beautiful 
birds and they have a pretty nest and eggs. You should 
come down now. The birds don’t like to have you so close 
to their home.” 

The children climbed down from the tree. When they 
had gone a little distance from the tree, they saw a 
hawk flying over it. 

“That hawk is hunting for his dinner,” said Buddy. 

“I do hope he doesn’t find Mr. and Mrs. Scissor-tail’s 
nest,” said Marylee. 

“He had better keep away from those scissor-tails,” 
said Uncle Jack. 

They stopped and watched the hawk flying above the 
tree where the nest was. 

“Hawks catch and eat small animals and birds,” said 
Uncle Jack. “But the scissor-tails are not afraid to 
fight hawks who come too near.” 

“There they go after the hawk now,” said Buddy. 

Mother and Father Scissor-tail flew upward at the 
hawk, screaming as they flew. The hawk was much 
larger than the scissor-tails, but they did not seem to be 
afraid of him. Mr. Scissor-tail flew up above the hawk, 
and then he came down right upon the hawk’s back. He 
held on to the hawk’s feathers with his feet and pecked 
and pecked with his sharp bill. The hawk flew fast, 


148 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


turning and dipping in the air, trying to throw Mr. 
Scissor-tail off, but Mr. Scissor-tail hung on and pecked 
out feathers. Not until the hawk had flown far away 
from the nest, did Mr. Scissor-tail turn loose. Then he 
flew back to his nest to which Mrs. Scissor-tail had al¬ 
ready returned. 

“My, that was a great fight,” laughed Buddy. “I don’t 
think that hawk will come near the nest of these birds 
again.” 


FATHER VERDIN HAS HIS OWN NEST 


The children were again looking in the bushes along 
the fence for the nest of a harvest mouse. 

“I have found one!” said Buddy, as he looked up in a 
bush that was a little higher than the others. In the 
branches there hung a big ball of twigs and weed stems 
built like that which the harvest mouse used for a nest. 

“Let’s see if Mother Harvest Mouse is at home,” said 
Marylee, as she looked for a hole in the side of the ball. 

“Here is the door on this side, Marylee,” said Buddy. 
“I think I saw something in it. I am not sure.” 

As Marylee turned around to look into the door, she 
shook the bush. A little head suddenly appeared in the 
hole. But it was not that of a mouse. It was the pretty 
head of a little bird. When he saw the children and 
Uncle Jack looking at him, he hopped out and flew away. 

The children looked at each other in surprise. 

“What was a little bird doing in the nest of a harvest 
mouse,” asked Buddy at last. 

Uncle Jack laughed and said, “It does look very much 
like the nest of a harvest mouse, but that little bird made 
that nest.” 

“Do you think there are any eggs in it, Uncle Jack?” 
asked Bess. 


149 


150 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“No,” he replied. “There are no eggs in it. That lit¬ 
tle bird is Mr. Verdin. He did not build that nest for 
Mrs. Verdin. He built it for himself, and not for Mrs. 
Verdin to lay eggs in. He built it so that he would have 
a quiet place to sleep in at night and to rest in during 
the day. Alone in his nest, he does not have to listen to 
crying baby birds. It is also a warm, dry place for him in 
the winter time.” 

“Well, how does Mrs. Verdin take care of her babies?” 
asked Fred. “Doesn't she have a nest for them?” 

“Oh, yes. She has a nest somewhere near,” said Uncle 
Jack. “Her nest is like this one, only it is larger. In the 
bottom is a pocket for the babies so they cannot fall out.” 

Marylee pushed into the bush so that she was close 
to the nest. “It is built of little leaves and stems of 
dried weeds,” said she. 

“Yes, the verdin uses almost anything that is easy to 
get to build its nest,” said Uncle Jack. “It does one 
clever thing that very few other birds do. It uses spider 
webs around the nest to hold it together.” 

After a little while Marylee said thoughtfully, “We 
are learning many strange things. We have already 
found something that had wings and could fly. We 
thought it was a bird. But you told us it was a mam¬ 
mal, called a bat. Then we thought we had found a 
bird’s nest, but there was a mouse in it with her babies. 
Now we have found another nest that looks like the nest 
of a mouse, but it belongs to a father bird.” 

“Marylee does not know what to believe,” said Uncle 
Jack, as he laughed and patted her on the shoulder. “You 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


151 



never know what you will find when you are hunting for 
Nature’s treasures. She keeps you thinking all the time. 
That is why I like to go with you on treasure hunts.” 

“I think I can tell the difference between the nest of 
a harvest mouse and that of a verdin the next time I see 
one,” said Buddy, as they walked away. 



HONK! HONK! HONK! 

“Honk! Honk! Honk!” Buddy and Marylee heard this 
strange sound as they sat in the yard with Uncle Jack. 

“Honk! Honk! Honk!” It sounded a long way off, 
but it was coming closer. Buddy and Marylee looked all 
around, but they could see nothing. Then they saw Uncle 
Jack laughing. 

“Why are you laughing?” asked Marylee. 

“Because you are not looking in the right place,” said 
Uncle Jack. “You should look up into the sky.” 

“Honk! Honk! Honk!” They heard it again, and this 
time it was much nearer. 

“It’s somewhere up in the air,” said Marylee. 

“I never heard an airplane sound like that,” said 
Buddy. “Look, I see something in the bright part of the 
sky yonder. It looks just like a number of airplanes fly¬ 
ing together in a V shape. But they can’t be airplanes. 

“You are right, Buddy,” said Uncle Jack. “They are 
not airplanes. They are wild geese.” 

“Are they coming south for the winter?” asked Buddy. 

“That is just what they are doing,” replied Uncle 
Jack. “They always make a big V in the sky when sev¬ 
eral of them fly together.” 

“Isn’t it interesting that wild geese and other birds 
come south to spend the winter?” said Marylee. 

“Do the geese go very far north during the summer, 
Uncle Jack?” asked Buddy. 

152 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


153 














154 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“They nest up in Canada/' was the reply, “where there 
are many lakes. When the baby geese hatch, they can go 
swimming every day in fresh clean water." 

“I would like to fly along through the air as they are 
doing," said Buddy. “It would be great fun to look down 
and see houses, trees, rivers, and other things. I would 
like to live up in Canada a part of the year, and by the 
Gulf of Mexico the rest of the year." 

“But how do they find their way so far?" asked 
Marylee. 

“See the one in the front," said Uncle Jack. “That is 
their leader. He is a wise old gander who has made the 
trip before. He knows the country and guides them by 
day and by night with his honking call. But if the clouds 
get too thick and low, he may lose his way. Then the 
geese become frightened and will come down to the 
ground. Sometimes they get so frightened that they fly 
against something and hurt themselves. Let me tell you 
a true story about a wild goose. 

“One winter he was flying south with his companions. 
He had reached Texas. Then one day he was hurt. He 
came down near a farmer's house where there were some 
tame geese. The tame geese took him in as one of them. 
He stayed all that year with the farmer's flock. His hurt 
wing healed. One day the next winter, he heard in the 
air the honk, honk, of the wild geese from Canada flying 
south again. He remembered his old free life. He for¬ 
got his new friends, rose on his wings, and flew off with 
the flying flock." 


FROM SEED TO TREE 

Consider the lilies how they grow; 
they toil not , neither do they spin. 


The Bible 



FLOWERS AND THEIR FRIENDS 


“Uncle Jack, please come out and see how beautiful 
the flowers are this morning,” begged Marylee, when 
she found Uncle Jack in the house. “The rain we had 
last evening has made the plants grow new flowers.” 

“Certainly, I will come,” replied Uncle Jack. “I al¬ 
ways enjoy the fresh flowers that come after a rain. 
Perhaps Fred and Bess would like to go with us. You 
might telephone and ask them.” 

“And I will ask Mother for a lunch to take with us,” 
added Marylee, as she ran to the telephone. 

Mother had the lunch ready by the time Bess and 
Fred arrived. 

They left the house and walked to the edge of the woods 
where Buddy was picking some flowers for Mother. 
Buddy saw them coming and called, “Isn’t this a fine 
bunch? See how many different colors I have! Here is 
a yellow one. Here is another yellow one with a brown 
center. Here are red ones, and blue ones, and blue and 
white ones. Here is a dark yellow and there is a lemon 
yellow. And I have some pink ones and some pure white 
ones.” 

“Why are there so many colors?” asked Marylee. 

“Flowers have different colors so that their friends 
157 


158 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


can tell them apart,” Uncle Jack explained. “Can you 
tell me who are the friends of the flowers?” 

“We are friends of the flowers,” Buddy replied slowly 
as if he were thinking. “But I don't believe you mean 
us. Perhaps, you mean the bees are friends of the 
flowers.” 

“Yes, I did mean the bees,” agreed Uncle Jack. “Bees 
are friends of the flowers and the flowers are friends 
of the bees. You can hear the gentle humming of the 
bees, as they go from flower to flower, and the flowers 
seem to nod their heads to the bees in a very friendly 
way.” 

“Mother told us that bees find honey, which she called 
nectar, in the flowers,” said Marylee. “The bees must 
be happy when the flowers give them so much sweets. 
What do the bees give the flowers in return?” 

“The bees help the baby seeds of the flowers to grow,” 
replied Uncle Jack. 

“The bees stay such a little while on the flowers, how 
can they help the seeds?” asked Fred. 

“You have both seen pollen, which is the yellow dust 
in the flowers,” Uncle Jack explained. “The tiny seeds 
in the bottom of each flower must have some of this pollen 
before they can ripen. If they do not have this pollen at 
the right time, they will die.” 

“The pollen is right there in the flower,” Bess said. 

“The pollen of many flowers will not make their own 
seeds grow,” replied Uncle Jack. “The baby seeds of one 
flower must have pollen from another flower of the same 
kind.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


159 



“Now, I know how the bees help the flowers,” cried 
Marylee. “They get pollen all over their fuzzy legs 
when they are after nectar in a flower. Then they carry 
that pollen to the next flower. Some of the pollen rubs 
off for the baby seeds there. I have seen bees with so 
much yellow dust on them that they looked like powder 
puffis. But I didn’t know that was the way they paid 
for their honey.” 

“That is right,” continued Uncle Jack. “But the pol¬ 
len from a buttercup would not be of any use to the 
seeds of the violet. A bee finds only a tiny bit of nectar 
in each flower; so it must visit many flowers before it 



160 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


has enough nectar to carry back to the hive. If the first 
flower which it visits when it starts to gather a load of 
nectar is a buttercup, then it continues to go from one 
buttercup to another. So the buttercup pollen is not 
wasted on flowers which cannot use it.” 

“How does the bee know a buttercup when it sees it?” 
Buddy asked. 

“How do you know a buttercup when you see it?” 
Uncle Jack, smilingly, asked in reply. 

Buddy did not answer until he thought for a little 
while. He knew that the bright yellow color of the flow¬ 
ers helped him to find them and know that they were 
buttercups. He also knew that there are flowers which 
are yellow, but they are not the shape and size of butter¬ 
cups. He finally replied, “The color of the buttercups 
helps me to know that they are buttercups, but I might 
make a mistake if they were like some other flowers in 
size and shape.” 

“That is probably the way the bees know them,” Uncle 
Jack added. 

“But there are some flowers that are so small and 
have such little color you can hardly see them,” Marylee 
objected. 

“That is true,” Uncle Jack agreed, “but most of those 
flowers have a strong perfume instead of large size and 
bright colors. The perfume helps the bees to find and 
know them.” 

“I think it is very wonderful the way the flowers coax 
the bees to help them to get the pollen for their baby 
seeds,” Marylee said thoughtfully. 


UNDER A LIVE OAK TREE 


“Who wants some lunch now?” called Uncle Jack. 

“I do! I do! I do!” cried the children, as they came 
running toward him. 

Noon had found them near the edge of the woods. 
They carried the lunch over to a big live oak tree where 
the grass was smooth and clean. Soon they were busy 
eating. 

Fred, looking up at the tree, said, “I would like to 
know why this tree is called a live oak.” 

“It is called live oak because it is always alive,” said 
Buddy, as he took another bite of sandwich. 

“That can't be the reason, because all oaks are alive,” 
replied Fred. 

“Buddy was almost right,” said Uncle Jack. “This is 
the only kind of oak that keeps its leaves all winter. It 
stays green when all the other oak trees are bare and 
look dead. It is the only kind that looks alive in the win¬ 
ter; so it is called live oak.” 

“Does it keep the same leaves forever?” asked Bess. 

“Oh, no. It drops its leaves and gets new ones every 
year,” said Uncle Jack. 

“How can it drop its leaves and still stay green all the 
time?” asked Fred. “There must be something funny 
about that.” 


161 


162 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


Uncle Jack laughed and said, “There is something 
unusual about it, Fred. I will tell you the live oak’s 
secret. The live oak does not drop its leaves in the fall 
like the other trees. It keeps them until spring. As fast 
as old leaves drop off, the new leaves grow out. Soon 
the live oak has a beautiful new dress, and few persons 
know how or when it got it.” 

“Here are some of the acorns in their pretty little 
cups,” said Marylee, who had finished her lunch and was 
looking around to see what she could find. “Are they 
good to eat?” 

“The acorns of many oak trees are bitter and not at 
all good to eat,” replied her uncle. “But these acorns are 
not sour or bitter. The Indians used to eat them. They 
might taste good to me, if I were very hungry. They are 
rather dry. They taste better when roasted.” 

Fred, tasting one, said, “Whew! I don’t like acorns.” 

Buddy tried one. “I don’t like them, either,” he said. 

“Maybe one could learn to like them,” added Marylee. 

“I’m thankful we don’t have to eat them,” said Fred. 

“Is a tree like this very old, Uncle Jack?” asked Bess. 

“Yes, Bess,” answered Uncle Jack. “It takes many 
years for an oak to grow as large as this one. It is much 
older than your grandfather. It was growing here when 
the Indians lived in this country.” 

“Do you think that the Indians ever sat where we are 
sitting now?” asked Bess. 

“They may have sat under this very tree,” replied 
Uncle Jack. “The Indian girls and boys may have picked 
up acorns here just as you are doing.” 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 163 


“I wish I knew how old this tree is,” said Fred. 

“It is very hard to tell how old a tree is while it is 
standing,” answered Uncle Jack. “But after it is cut 
down, you can tell. You can tell, also, which years had 
much rain and which years had very little.” 

“Do show us how you can tell, Uncle Jack,” begged 
Bess. 

“Let us go to that stump yonder and see if we can 
read the age of that tree when it was cut down,” said 
Uncle Jack. 

They went over to the stump. 

“See these rings in the wood,” said Uncle Jack. “It took 
the tree a whole year to make one of these rings. Each 
year the tree puts on a new layer of wood just under 
the bark. That layer is the ring you see. Now count 
the rings. Then we shall know how old the tree was.” 

They tried to count the rings, but it was a little hard 
to do, because some of the rings were so close together. 
They counted twenty rings. 

“That means that the tree was twenty years old,” said 
Buddy. “But, Uncle Jack, why are some of the rings 
so wide and some of them so narrow and close together?” 

“When the ground was very dry, the tree did not grow 
so much and this layer of new wood which you see is 
not so thick,” replied Uncle Jack. “Here is a wide ring. 
There was much rain that year and the tree grew all of 
that new wood. The next year was very dry. The tree 
grew only this little narrow belt of wood.” 

“You can look at the end of a branch that has been 
cut off and tell the age of the branch,” continued Uncle 


164 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


Jack. “It, too, grows a new layer of wood every year. 
These layers show as a ring in the end of the branch 
when it is cut. Count the rings and you know how old 
the branch is.” 


BUDDY FIGHTS A WEED 


Buddy, seeing a beautiful yellow and black butterfly, 
ran to catch it. The children saw him run a little way 
and stop. He ran back as fast as he could, crying, “Ouch! 
Ouch!” He picked up a big stick, and began to beat 
some weeds. 

“What can he be doing?” asked Bess. 

“Maybe a snake bit him,” said Fred. 

They ran to Buddy. They heard him talking, in such 
an angry tone, to the weeds. “There, take that, and that, 
and that,” he said as he pounded the weeds. “HI teach 
you not to sting my legs like a bunch of wasps when I 
didn’t intend to hurt you. I’m going to break every one 
of you before I stop!” 

“Buddy! Buddy!” called Uncle Jack. “You must not 
let weeds make you so angry. Hold your temper as a 
man should.” 

“Just look at my legs, Uncle Jack,” said Buddy, as he 
stopped pounding the weeds. “See how red they are. 
They look as if they had been burned, and they feel like 
it, too.” 

“Yes, I know they hurt,” said Uncle Jack. “But you 
must not blame the weeds. Come and sit down while I 
tell you about them.” 


165 


166 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“I wish that I had some water to put on my legs. It 
would feel nice and cool,” said Buddy. 

“No, Buddy. Water would make your legs burn more,” 
said Uncle Jack. “It is also better not to rub them.” 

“What makes them sting?” asked Buddy. 

“Those weeds are nettles,” answered Uncle Jack. “They 
have hairs all over their leaves and stems. Each hair is 
sharp like a tiny needle. It has a hole through its center. 
At the bottom of each hair there is a tiny sac of poison. 
This sac is just under the skin of the leaf and so little 
that you cannot see it. The hair is so sharp that it sticks 
into your skin when you touch it. Then the poison flows 
into your skin through the hole in the hair. That poison 
makes your skin hurt.” 

“Why do they have such hairs, Uncle Jack?” asked 
Bess. “I don't think they are friendly plants.” 

“Those weeds do not want to be friendly,” laughed 
Uncle Jack. “They grow the poison so animals will leave 
them alone. You can see how all the weeds around us 
are eaten off except the nettles.” 

“There are some weeds in that low wet place over there 
that the cows have not eaten. Are they nettles, too?” 
asked Marylee. 

“No, that is a different weed,” replied Uncle Jack. 
“It is colored a much brighter green, and it is called 
smart weed.” 

“Is it called smart weed because it knows so much?” 
asked Bess. 

“Oh, no! That is not the reason,” laughed Uncle Jack. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


167 



“Fred, if you will get me a little piece of one of the 
plants, I shall show you why it gets its name.’ > 

Fred picked a piece of a plant and gave it to Uncle 
Jack. 

“Now, see the sap comes out,” Uncle Jack said as he 
broke one of the leaves. “The sap of the smart weed does 
not taste good. It smarts or burns when you get some 
in your mouth. If you get very much in your mouth, it 
hurts. The cows soon learn to leave it alone. Fred, are 
you brave enough to taste a very little bit of the sap, if 
I do? 

“Yes,” answered Fred. The others then tasted a lit- 











168 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


tie, too. It did not burn much, but they did not want to 
try it again. 

“Plants can’t run away from their enemies, and they 
don’t have mouths with teeth,” said Uncle Jack. “They 
have to fight some other way. Some have stingers like 
the nettles. Some have bad-tasting sap. Others have 
thorns, and a few are very poisonous. We may find all 
of these kinds while we are looking for treasures.” 

“I shall try not to be angry the next time plants sting 
me,” promised Buddy. “I shall remember that it is their 
way of keeping things from hurting them.” 

“That is right, Buddy,” said Uncle Jack. “It is much 
better to know the plants which will hurt you, and then 
not touch them.” 


HOW SEEDS TRAVEL 


“Uncle Jack, look at that cow,” called Fred, as he 
pointed to one standing in the brush. “The end of her 
tail looks like a ball.” 

“She has been walking through a patch of cocklebur 
plants,” replied Uncle Jack. “Some of the burs caught 
hold of her tail, and now they are taking a ride.” 

“How can they hold on to her tail?” asked Bess. 

“Some seeds have a shell around them, and on the out¬ 
side of that shell are many stickers or spines. These 
shells are called burs,” explained Uncle Jack. “Each 
spine of the cocklebur has a hook at the end. The hooks 
catch in the long hair of animals, and the burs get a 
free ride.” 

“Why do they want to go for a ride?” asked Buddy. 

“Plants make a great many seeds,” Uncle Jack replied. 
“If all of those seeds dropped on the ground near the 
mother plants, the young plants would be so close to¬ 
gether that there would not be enough food in the soil 
for them to eat. They would soon die. So some of the 
seeds must find other places to grow. They cannot walk; 
they have to travel some other way. They might get into 
the hair of a dog, a horse, a sheep, or a wolf. They might 
even catch on your trousers, Buddy, if you happened to 
touch some of them.” 


169 


170 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“There are many different kinds of burs,” continued 
Uncle Jack. “There are some tiny flat burs called stick- 
tights, because they stick to your clothes so tightly that 
it is hard to get them off. Then there are some with only 
two spines, which are so long they make the bur look 
like a fork.” 

“How do seeds that are not in burs travel?” asked 
Buddy. 

“Some of them are carried away by the birds. Others 
float away on the water when it rains. And some fly 
through the air. Each seed of the cottonwood tree has 
fastened to it a little fluffy silk, like a sail, so that the 
wind can blow it a long way.” 

“I know another kind that flies through the air,” said 
Marylee. 

“What kind?” asked Buddy. 

“The dandelion,” replied his sister. “Each seed has a 
little bunch of white hairs on one end of it. It’s fun to 
blow the seeds and watch them float away like tiny 
balloons.” 

“It may be fun to blow those seeds,” said Buddy, “but 
it isn't fun to taste the bitter milk in the stems of the 
dandelion.” 

“The dandelion does not want the cows or horses to 
eat it before its seeds have a chance to sail away,” said 
Uncle Jack. “That is why the milk, or sap, in its stem 
is bitter.” 

“Are there any other ways that seeds travel?” asked 
Fred. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


171 



“Yes, some plants grow their seeds in pods,” Uncle 
Jack answered. “When the seeds are ripe, the pods pop 
open and scatter them. They do not go as far as the ones 
with sails, but the wind carried them a little way. There 
are still other ways that seeds travel. But I shall tell 
you about them some other time.” 






WHAT IS A POTATO? 


“Who wants to help get supper ready?” called Mother, 
as Uncle Jack and the children came in from their walk. 

“I do,” said Marylee. 

“How can we help?” asked Buddy. 

“Marylee, you may put the dishes on the table,” re¬ 
plied Mother. “Buddy may get the potatoes ready to 
cook.” 

“I shall help Buddy,” said Uncle Jack. “I am a good 
potato peeler.” 

Buddy ran and brought the potatoes. They sat down 
to peel them. 

“What is a potato, Uncle Jack?” asked Buddy. “Is it 
called a fruit, like a peach or an apple?” 

“No,” he replied. “It is only a branch that grows under 
the ground, instead of growing above the ground as 
most branches do. The branch is small at first. The 
potato plant makes food and stores it in the little branch 
under the ground. The branch grows larger and larger 
as the plant puts more and more food into it. In a few 
weeks, the little branch becomes a big, fat potato.” 

“Why does the plant put food into a branch under 
the ground?” asked Buddy. “Does it do this so that we 
may have potatoes to eat?” 

172 


FINDING NATURE’S- TREASURES 


173 



“The potato plant is not thinking about us,” said Uncle 
Jack. “It puts the food there for its own babies to eat 
next year. The plant does not live long. When the potato 
is full grown, the plant begins to die. Those little spots 
on the potato, which you call eyes, are really buds. They 
are very much like the buds on branches that grow above 
the ground. In the spring baby potato plants grow from 
those eyes, or buds. While these plants are growing, 
they eat the food that the mother plant stored in the 
potato for them.” 

“Here is a baby plant starting to grow from an eye,” 
said Buddy. 



































174 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Yes, each eye, or bud, can make a new plant,” said 
Uncle Jack. “When we plant potatoes, we do not plant 
potato seeds. We plant potato pieces which have some 
buds on them.” 

“Everything is interesting when you know about it, 
isn't it, Uncle Jack?” asked Buddy. 

“Yes, that is true,” he replied. “Now the potatoes are 
peeled and ready to cook.” 

“Thank you very much,” said Mother. 


FROM SAP TO SUGAR 


“Uncle Jack, please pass the sugar,” said Buddy, while 
they were eating supper. 

“Do you know what sugar is, Buddy?” asked Uncle 
Jack, as he passed it to him. 

“I know that sugar is sweet,” replied Buddy. 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “But where does it come 
from?” 

“This sugar came from the store, didn’t it, Mother?” 
answered Buddy. 

They laughed at Buddy’s answer. Then Marylee said, 
“Everyone knows that we get sugar from the store, 
stupid! Uncle Jack asked if you knew where it came 
from first.” 

“I don’t know where the store gets it,” replied Buddy. 
“I know that they don’t get it out of the ocean, because 
the ocean water is salty.” 

“Please tell us where sugar does come from, Uncle 
Jack,” begged Marylee. 

“Most sugar is made from the sweet sap of sugar cane 
plants,” replied Uncle Jack. “It is so sweet that children 
who live where the sugar cane grows like to chew the 
stems of the plants and suck out the juice.” 

175 


176 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“How do they get the sap out of the stems to make 
sugar?” asked Buddy. 

“They cut off the stems close to the ground with big 
knives,” answered Uncle Jack. “Then they carry the 
stems to a machine which squeezes out the juice. The 
machine is much like Mother’s clothes-wringer, but much 
larger. It squeezes out the juice of the cane stalks just 
like a wringer squeezes the water out of clothes. The 
sap looks like water at first, and much of it is water. 
Then it is put into great kettles and boiled slowly. The 
water goes off in steam and leaves the sugar in the bot¬ 
tom of the kettle.” 

“That is just what happens when you boil salt water,” 
said Marylee. “We did that. The salt was left in the 
bottom of the pan when the water was all gone.” 

“The sugar is not pretty and white when it first comes 
from the mill,” continued Uncle Jack. “It is brown like 
the sugar that Mother sometimes gets to use in her 
cooking. The brown sugar is sent to a refinery, which is 
a place where it is made clean and white as you see it 
now.” 

“Does all sugar come from sugar cane?” asked Buddy. 

“No, a large part of our sugar is made from the sap 
of sugar beets,” replied Uncle Jack. 

“Do you mean from beets like those we have for din¬ 
ner?” asked Marylee. 

“Yes, it is made from beets that are very much like 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


177 



those we eat. But the sugar beets are much larger and 
sweeter,” he answered. 












































A DRESS MADE OF WOOD 


“I have your new party dress finished, Marylee,” called 
Mother, from the back room. 

“Goody, goody,” said Marylee, as she went to Mother. 
“May I put it on now, so that Uncle Jack can see how 
pretty it is?” 

“Yes,” replied Mother. 

Marylee went back to the library to show the new 
dress to her uncle. 

“That is a pretty dress,” Uncle Jack said when he 
saw it. 

“It is silk, too, isn’t it, Mother?” asked Marylee. 

“It does look like silk,” replied Mother, “but it is not. 
It is called rayon.” 

“What is rayon?” asked Buddy. 

“Perhaps your Uncle Jack can tell you about it,” re¬ 
plied Mother. 

“Your dress is probably made of wood,” said Uncle 
Jack. Then he laughed to see how surprised Marylee 
and Buddy were. 

“How can it be made of wood?” asked Marylee. “It 
is shiny, soft, and as pretty as silk. Silk is not made of 
wood, is it? It doesn’t look like wood, and it doesn’t feel 
hard like wood.” 

“Silk is made from the leaves of trees,” said Uncle 
178 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


179 



Jack. “There is a caterpillar called the silkworm that 
eats the leaves of the mulberry tree, and then spins a 
cocoon of silk. Men get the silk to make cloth by unwind¬ 
ing the threads of the cocoon. So silk is really made 
from the leaves of trees." 

“Is the cocoon of the silkworm like the cocoon made 
by the Cecropia caterpillar?'' asked Buddy. 

“Yes, they are very much alike," said Uncle Jack. 
“The Cecropia cocoon is larger, but the threads in it are 
not so strong as those the silkworm makes for its co¬ 
coon." 


























180 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Rayon,” continued Uncle Jack, “is not made from the 
silk of caterpillars, but from the wood of trees. Men 
grind up very fine some certain kinds of wood into what 
is called pulp. Then they mix other things with the pulp, 
and cook them all together until it is sticky like glue. 
This sticky stuff is squeezed through tiny holes, so that 
it makes long threads that look like silk. The thread is 
then colored and made into cloth, like that in your pretty 
dress, Marylee.” 

“Then, I am really wearing a dress made of wood,” 
said Marylee. 

“You may be, but that is not certain,” replied Uncle 
Jack. “Cheap cotton is also used to make rayon. I can¬ 
not tell by looking at the rayon whether it was made of 
cotton or of wood.” 

“I am going to play that my dress is made of wood,” 
said Marylee. “I think that is more fun.” 

“Do they make cloth out of anything else besides cot¬ 
ton and silk and wood, Uncle Jack?” asked Buddy. 

“Oh, yes, they use several other things in making dif¬ 
ferent kinds of cloth,” replied Uncle Jack. “You will 
learn about them later.” 


BITS OF ROCK AND DROPS OF WATER 


Nattire speaks in symbols and in signs. 


J. G. Whittier 



DISHES OF CLAY 


“See how this dirt is falling down from the bank,” 
said Buddy, one day when all the children and Uncle 
Jack were walking along the creek. 

“I don’t like to hear you call that dirt,” remarked 
Uncle Jack. “It is better to call it soil, or earth. Soil 
only becomes dirt when it is where it should not be, on 
your face or in the house. But we could not live without 
the soil. There would be no flowers, no trees, no animals, 
no people.” 

“I never thought of that before,” said Buddy. “But, 
Uncle Jack, what makes this yellow earth fall down in 
hard little pieces?” 

“That is clay. It is a kind of soil that, when it gets 
dry, becomes very hard. There are some pieces that 
have rolled into the water. See if they are hard, also.” 

Bess picked up some of the pieces and squeezed them 
in her hand. 

“Oh, they are soft!” she cried. “Won’t they make 
beautiful play dishes?” 

So Marylee and Bess began to make some little cups, 
saucers, and plates. Fred tried to make a boat, and 
Buddy rolled some into marbles. 

“The Indians made their real dishes of clay,” con¬ 
tinued Uncle Jack. “They mixed a little very fine sand 
183 


184 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


into the clay to keep it from cracking so easily. They 
baked the dishes in the fire to make them strong. Then 
they painted them with pretty colors, something like our 
dishes.” 

“Mother has some beautiful dishes,” said Fred, “but 
most of them are white.” 

“Those dishes are made of white clay,” explained 
Uncle Jack. “They are made by machinery and baked 
in great ovens that are very, very hot. Sometimes other 
things are put with the clay to make the dishes stronger.” 

“Is anything else made of clay?” asked Fred. 

“Bricks are made of clay mixed with a little sand and 
put into a mold. Then the bricks are placed in big ovens 
and baked, also.” 

“The clay that Mother’s dishes are made of isn’t like 
the soil in our garden, though,” said Fred. 

“Dishes are made of rock flour,” continued Uncle Jack. 

The children looked at Uncle Jack in surprise. 

“What do you mean by rock flour?” asked Fred. “Rocks 
are hard, and this wet clay is soft.” 

“Grains of wheat are hard, aren’t they?” asked Uncle 
Jack. 

“Yes,” answered Fred. 

“But when the flour made by grinding that wheat is 
mixed with water, it is soft, very much like this wet 
clay,” explained Uncle Jack. “When a certain kind of 
rock called feldspar is ground up like flour, we say it is 
clay, but it is really rock flour.” 

“How do the feldspar rocks get ground up?” asked 
Bess. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


185 














186 


FINDING NATURE'S TREASURES 


“Some are ground up when they come tumbling down 
the creek. Tiny pieces break off of rocks that stick out 
of the ground very much the same way that little pieces 
of wood come off old logs. It takes a long, long time, but 
after a while the rocks turn to flour, and so we find clay. 
But, when men want white clay, they don’t wait so long. 
They take the feldspar rocks and grind them in mills 
until they are very, very fine. Then they make dishes of 
this flour. That is how they get most of the clay from 
which our pretty dishes are made.” 

“I didn’t know that there were so many interesting 
things about clay,” said Fred. 


STORIES WRITTEN ON ROCKS 


“Unde Jack, here is a flat rock with something on it,” 
said Buddy. “It looks like the picture of a big snail.” 

“You are right,” replied his uncle. “That is the pic¬ 
ture of a snail, and it tells a story of long, long ago.” 

“Please tell us the story,” begged Marylee. 

“Let us sit down and I will,” said Uncle Jack. 

“It was long, long ago, when the earth was much 
younger than it is now,” he began. 

“Was it when you were a little boy?” asked Bess. 

Uncle Jack laughed and replied, “It was a long, long 
time before I was a little boy. It was many, many years 
before your great-grandfather's great-grandfather was 
a little boy.” 

“That was a long time ago,” said Marylee. “Well, 
what happened?” 

“In those days the ocean covered the ground where 
we are now sitting,” continued Uncle Jack. 

“Do you mean that we are sitting where there was once 
an ocean bottom?” asked Fred. “Did fish and whales 
swim around right here?” 

Marylee's eyes were wide open in surprise at what 
Uncle Jack had said. 


187 


188 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Yes,” continued Uncle Jack, “that was when this 
snail was alive. This kind of snail lived only in the 
ocean. Wherever you find their pictures in the rocks, 
you may be sure that the ocean was there a long, long 
time ago.” 

“I don’t see how their pictures could get in the rocks,” 
said Buddy. 

“This rock was soft when the snail was alive,” ex¬ 
plained Uncle Jack. “The snail died and its shell lay on 
the bottom of the ocean. The shell became covered with 
sand and mud. Slowly the sand and mud became harder 
and harder. Mud squeezed inside of the shell, and that 
became hard, too. Now, you can see just where the shell 
was, and what it looked like.” 

“This must have been a big snail,” said Buddy. “I 
never saw one alive the size of this one. It would cover 
your hand.” 

Uncle Jack continued, “There were many large crea¬ 
tures living on the land and in the water then. Some of 
the animals were very much larger than elephants. Some 
of the snails were as big as a large head of cabbage. 
People find the pictures of many birds, insects, fish, 
plants, and trees pressed into the rocks. Sometimes the 
real bones of animals that lived then are found. These 
rock pictures and bones are called fossils, and they tell 
us stories of what the earth was like when they were 
alive. Men dig them out of the rocks and put them in 
show places called museums. We can go to museums and 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


189 



read many stories about what the earth looked like before 
there were men to write stories in books.” 

“Some day Urn going to learn all about fossils,” said 
Buddy. “They must tell lots of interesting things.” 

“Let's keep this fossil as one of our treasures,” said 
Marylee. 







WATER FLOATING IN THE AIR 


“I am glad that you came home before it started to 
rain,” said Mother, as Uncle Jack and the children ran 
to the porch. 

Uncle Jack sat down in a porch chair before he spoke. 
“We did not care to get wet; so we hurried home. But 
I always- like to watch it rain, because everything seems 
so clean and fresh after it is over. The rain gives the 
plants a drink of water; so they can grow and make 
more beautiful flowers. It gives the trees and the grass 
a bath; so they are brighter and greener. Even the birds 
seem to sing more happily after a rain.” 

“There comes the rain now,” cried Buddy, as the drops 
began to fall. 

The drops of rain came down faster and faster. They 
splashed in the yard. They fell on the roof and made a 
great racket. Water poured off the house and ran down 
the path. Soon everything was very wet. 

“What makes it rain, Uncle Jack?” asked Marylee. 
“Is the water on top of the cloud like water in a dish? 
And does it spill over the sides, or leak through the bot¬ 
tom so that it falls on us?” 

“No, Marylee, the cloud is not like a dish of water,” 
Uncle Jack replied, smiling. “The cloud itself is water.” 

“If the cloud is water, how does it stay up in the air?” 

190 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


191 



asked Buddy. “When I throw water up into the air, 
it always comes down again.” 

“Before I answer your question, Buddy, I shall ask 
you and Marylee one. Do either of you know what 
steam is?” 

“I know what it is,” answered Marylee. “It is water 
that comes from the spout of the teakettle when the 
water in it is boiling. The steam floats in the air like 
smoke. When it was cold in the kitchen last winter, 
steam floated up to the top of the room and looked like 
a little cloud up there. Was that like the real clouds we 
see up in the sky?” 
































































192 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“Yes, a real cloud is very much like the one you saw 
in the kitchen,” Uncle Jack replied. “Of course, the real 
clouds do not come out of a teakettle. The air has tiny 
drops of water in it all the time. The drops are so very 
small that you cannot see them. Air that is hot can hold 
much more water than cold air can. The air inside of 
the teakettle is very hot, so that it holds a great deal 
of water; but the hot air becomes cooler when it comes 
out of the teakettle. The cool air will not hold all of the 
tiny drops. Many of them go together and make larger 
drops. We can see these new drops, but they are so small 
that they float in the air, and we call them steam. The 
air is cold far up in the sky, and the tiny drops of water 
have come together to make a kind of cold steam which 
appears as clouds to us.” 

“Now, I understand what makes the clouds,” said 
Marylee. “But I would like to know what makes the 
water come down in big drops.” 

“I think that I can help you to understand that, too,” 
answered Uncle Jack. “The clouds of cold steam float in 
the sky until they come to a place where the air is much 
colder. Then the little drops get still closer together until 
they form drops so large that they will no longer float 
in the air. So they fall to the earth. If. we are under 
that cold place in the sky, the drops fall on us.” 

“Have you ever been up in a cloud, Uncle Jack?” asked 
Buddy. 

“Yes, I have been in clouds many times,” answered 
Uncle Jack. 

“Please tell us what they looked like,” begged Marylee. 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


193 


“They looked like cold steam all around me. I could 
see the little drops of water floating in the air, and there 
were so many little drops that I could not see through 
them. They were gray and wet, but no big drops were 
falling.” 

“Sometimes these clouds are right down on the 
ground,” continued Uncle Jack. “Then we call them 
fogs. Fogs are dangerous on the ocean, because men in 
boats cannot see where to go. They get lost and cannot 
get back to land until the fog goes away. Sometimes 
the boats run together and are wrecked.” 









OUT IN STAR LAND 


The heavens declare the glory of God; 
and the firmament showeth his handiwork. 


The Bible 





LIVING ON THE MOON 


Buddy, Marylee, and Uncle Jack were sitting on the 
porch talking with Mother. It was after supper, and 
the sun had just gone down behind the hills in the west. 

“Look, Mother! Look, Uncle Jack! See the great big 
round moon coming up in the east!” cried Marylee. 

“The sun and the moon must be playing seesaw,” said 
Buddy. “The moon comes up and the sun goes down.” 

Mother and Uncle Jack both laughed at the idea of 
the sun and moon playing seesaw. 

“Mother told us last year that the moon was large and 
round like it is now for just a night or two, and then 
grows smaller until it is all dark. After that the light 
part comes back and grows larger each night until the 
moon is all bright and round again like it is tonight.” 

“That is well told, Buddy,” said Uncle Jack. “Do you 
remember how long it takes the moon to grow small and 
then get big again?” 

“I remember,” said Marylee. “It takes about four 
weeks.” 

“I wish I had an airplane so that I could fly to the 
moon,” said Buddy. “I wonder what it is like.” 

“Airplanes cannot fly to the moon, because the earth 
keeps pulling them back, just as it pulls you back when 
197 


198 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


you jump up in the air,” said Uncle Jack. “But let’s play 
that you could fly to the moon. How long would it take 
you to get there?” 

“An airplane goes whizzing, Uncle Jack,” answered 
Buddy. “It goes more than a hundred miles an hour. 
It might take me all day to get there if I didn’t stop.” 

“It is farther than you think it is, Buddy. You would 
have to fly all day and all night during your whole sum¬ 
mer vacation.” 

“Do you mean I would have to fly the whole three 
months at a hundred miles an hour, and never stop to 
eat or sleep?” demanded Buddy. “Whew! That is a 
long way, Uncle Jack. It gives me a headache to think 
about it. I believe I would rather stay here and let you 
tell me about it.” 

“I think that is the better plan,” said Uncle Jack. “It 
would not be very much fun even after you got there. 
It would be so hot during the day that you would burn. 
You would feel as if you were walking on the top of a 
stove that is nearly red hot. You would fry like a piece 
of bacon in a frying pan. That is the way you would 
feel all day, and a day on the moon is two weeks long.” 

“I can almost feel myself frying now,” said Marylee; 
and they all laughed. 

“Then after you were cooked for two weeks, it would 
get dark,” continued Uncle Jack. “You would not even 
be warm any more. Oh, no! You would get colder and 
colder. You could put on all of your clothes and still you 
would be cold. Your nose would freeze. Your fingers and 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


199 



toes would freeze. Then you would begin to freeze all 
over, and soon you would be like a piece of ice.” 

“Now, I am getting all cold,” said Marylee, as she 
snuggled up close to Mother as if to keep warm. 

“These are not all of the queer things about the moon, 
either,” said Uncle Jack. “There are no trees there. 
There are no insects, no birds, and no flowers. All of 
those things must have water to drink and air to breathe, 
just as you do. But there is no water on the moon and 
no air. So nothing can live there. The only things to 
see are the great mountains of solid rock.” 

“How does the Man in the Moon live in such a place,” 
asked Marylee, with a wondering look. 

Uncle Jack laughed and said, “I would feel sorry for 
him if he were a real man. But, of course, people only 
play that they see the picture of a man in the moon. 
That is just the way you sometimes watch the clouds 













200 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 



and play that you see pictures in them. But, if you look 
at the moon through a large telescope it looks much big¬ 
ger and seems to be much closer. Men have looked at the 
moon through telescopes for many years and they have 
learned that the dark places are either shadows made by 
high mountains or mountains of dark rocks and metals. 
The light spots are vast plains of light-colored rocks.” 








SHOOTING STARS 


“Money! Money! Money! Money! Money!” shouted 
Marylee, as she jumped up from the chair where she was 
sitting on the front porch after dark. 

“Now what has happened?’' asked Uncle Jack, as he 
looked at Marylee. “Did you see a lot of money?” 

Mother laughed and said, “Don’t you remember, Jack, 
when we were children, how we used to say, money, 
money, when we saw a shooting star?” 

“Oh, yes, I remember now,” answered he. “We thought 
the more times we could say money while it was in sight, 
the more money we would have some time.” 

“Why do the stars fall?” asked Buddy. “Aren’t they 
fastened well enough in the sky?” 

“Those shooting lights are not really stars,” answered 
Uncle Jack. “The stars that you see twinkling up in the 
sky never fall. They are many times farther away than 
the moon. Each one is many, many times larger than 
our whole earth.” 

“What are those falling lights we see, then?” asked 
Buddy. 

“They are called meteors,” answered Uncle Jack. 
“Some of them are as large as our house. Some are 
larger, most of them are smaller. They are much like 
a big rock. But they are not bright. So you cannot see 
201 


202 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


them, flying through the sky, until they come close to 
our earth.” 

“Why do they get bright near the earth?” asked 
Buddy. 

“When the meteor gets close enough to the earth to 
hit the air, it is going so fast, it at once gets hot and 
starts to burn,” explained Uncle Jack; “for the air is 
like a great blanket around the earth. It extends only 
a short distance up in the sky.” 

“I don't understand why the meteor gets so hot when 
it hits the air,” said Buddy. 

“I don't think that I can explain that to you in words 
you can understand,” said Uncle Jack. 

“Please do and we will try hard to understand, Uncle 
Jack,” begged Marylee. 

“I shall do the best I can, then,” said he. “First, open 
your hands and rub them together just as fast as you 
can. Faster! faster! Now hold them against your face.” 

“Oh, that makes our hands hot!” said Marylee. 

“Yes. Things always get hot when you rub them. The 
faster you rub them the hotter they get. They will begin 
to smoke and then to burn if you rub them fast enough. 
The Indians used to make fire before they had matches 
by rubbing two pieces of wood together. Anything going 
through the air fast enough will get hot, because it rubs 
against the air.” 

“Does the meteor get hot because it rubs the air?” 
asked Buddy. 

“Yes,” answered Uncle Jack. “It goes through the air 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


203 



very, very fast and gets hotter and hotter until it be¬ 
gins to burn. Then you can see it.” 

“But you said the meteor was a kind of rock,” said 
Buddy. “Rocks won’t burn, will they?” 

“Yes, anything will burn if it gets hot enough,” 
said Uncle Jack. “These rock meteors usually burn up 
before they get to the earth. Sometimes they do hit the 
earth, and go far into the ground. Men have dug them 
out. That is how we know what they are made of.” 












FINDING THE NORTH STAR 


“Aren’t the stars bright tonight?” said Buddy, as he, 
his sister, and his uncle came out on the porch one eve¬ 
ning. “Uncle Jack, is it as far to the stars as it is to 
the moon?” 

“Mother said it was much farther to the stars, Buddy,” 
replied Marylee. 

“It is much farther,” said Uncle Jack. “If you could 
fly so fast that you could go from here to the moon while 
I say zip, zip, it would take you four years to get to the 
nearest star you see.” 

“How far away that must be!” exclaimed Marylee. 
“Let’s play we are going to a star. Zip, zip. We are at 
the moon. Zip, zip, and we are twice as far as the moon. 
Zip, zip, and we are three times as far. Then if we keep 
going like that all day, and all night, and all week, and 
all month, and all year, for four years, we would get to 
the first star. My! That’s a mighty long way!” 

“Are the stars like the moon, Uncle Jack?” asked 
Buddy. “The moon is sometimes boiling hot and some¬ 
times freezing cold, you told us.” 

“No, the stars that we can see are never cold,” replied 
Uncle Jack. “They are great balls of burning rock and 
gases. They are hotter than anything that we know.” 

“Buddy, do you see those bright stars over in the 
204 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


205 



north ?” asked Marylee. “I mean those seven stars that 
are so pretty. ,, 

“I think I do,” replied Buddy. “Do you mean the ones 
that make a picture something like a big cup with a long 
handle? Three of the stars are in a line like a handle, 
and the other four stars make the cup.” 

“A cup with a long handle like that is called a dipper,” 
said Uncle Jack. “So we call those stars the Big Dipper. 
You can always find the North Star if you can see the 
Big Dipper.” 

“Why is it called the North Star, Uncle Jack?” asked 
Marylee. 























206 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 


“The North Star is always in the north. All other 
stars seem to move, but this star does not. You can al¬ 
ways know which way you are going at night if you can 
see the North Star. It is always in the same place in the 
sky. Of course, you know that the sun does not really 
move through the sky. Neither do the stars. It is the 
earth turning around that makes them seem to be mov- 
ing.” 

“Yes, Mother told us about that,” said Buddy. 

“The Big Dipper does not stay all night where it is 
now,” continued Uncle Jack. “It will be up higher in 
the sky after a while, just as the moon will be higher. 
But the North Star will be in just the same place as it 
is now.” 

“How can we tell which is the North Star?” asked 
Marylee. 

“Do you see those two stars which make the side of 
the Dipper that is away from the handle?” asked Uncle 
Jack. 

“Yes, I see them,” answered Buddy. 

“Those two stars always point to the North Star. So 
they are called the Pointers. I have a piece of string 
here. Take hold of each end and pull it so that it will 
be straight.” 

Buddy took an end of the string in each hand and 
pulled it as his uncle told him. 

“Now keep the string straight, but hold your hands 
out in front of you and up towards the Big Dipper. Hold 
one end of the string right on the Pointer star that is 


FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 207 

at the bottom of the cup. Now move the other hand so 
that the other Pointer star is touching the string. Look 
along the string toward the hand that is away from the 
Dipper. The first bright star you see almost touching 
the string is the North Star.” 

“I see it!” cried Buddy. “I can find the North Star 
now.” 

“Let me have the string to see if I can find it, too,” 
said Marylee. She took the string and held it the way 
her brother did, and soon she found the North Star. 

“You must remember that it does not make any dif¬ 
ference where the Big Dipper is when you see it,” said 
Uncle Jack. “It seems to move, but those two Pointers 
are always pointing to the North Star.” 

“Do all the other stars have names, too?” asked 
Marylee. 

“Yes, many of them do,” replied Uncle Jack. “Very 
interesting stories have been written about a great many 
of them. Some of the stories are very exciting. I may 
tell you some of them another time.” 






INDEX 


A 

Acorn, 162 
Adult, 12 
Air, 25,192, 202 
Ants, 13-16, 66 
Parasol, 13-19 
Armadillo, 101-104 

B 

Bank Swallow, 130 
Bat, 116-119 
Bees, 158-160 
Beetle, 98,104,142,146 
Beets, Sugar, 176,177 
Belted Kingfisher, 123-126 
Big Dipper, 205-207 
Bill, 123,124,126,128,132,142 
Birds 
See 

Bank Swallow, Belted King¬ 
fisher, Bluebird, Butcher bird, 
Cardinal, Cliff Swallow, 
Flicker, Geese, Mocking bird, 
Pigeon, Scissor - tailed Fly¬ 
catcher, Shrike, Turtledove, 
Woodpecker, Verdin 
Black Widow Spider, 69-71 
Bluebird, 131-135 
Box Tortoise, 80-83 
Bricks, 184 
Bullfrog, 53-57 
Burs, 169-170 
Butcher bird, 141-143 
Buttercup, 159-160 
Butterflies, 38, 71,165 
Monarch, 38-41 
Viceroy, 40 

C 

Cane, sugar, 176,177 
Cardinal, 128 


Caterpillar, 29, 30, 34, 36,134 
Cecropia, 34, 35,179 
Hawk, 30-33 
Humming-bird, 30-33 
Monarch, 41 
Silk, 179 
Swallow-tail, 32 
Catfish, 49, 52 
Cecropia Moth, 34-37,179 
Claws, 102,106,107,116 
Clay, 183-186 
Cliff Swallow, 127-130 
Clouds, 190-192 
Cocklebur, 169-170 
Cocoon 

Cecropia, 36, 37,179 
Hawk, 33 
Humming-bird, 33 
Monarch, 41 
Silk, 179 

Collared Lizard, 84-87 
Cottonwood, 170 
Crawfish, 45-48, 72 
Cricket, 20-22 
Crop, 139 

D 

Daddy Longlegs, 71 
Dandelion, 170 
Devil’s Darning Needle, 23 
Dipper, Big, 205-207 
Dirt, 183 

Dobson Fly, 26-28 
Dove, Turtle, 136-140 
Dragon Fly, 23-25 

E 

Earth, 183, 203 

Earthworm, 30, 78,101,102,104 


210 


INDEX 


Egg 

Ant, 16,18 

Black Widow Spider, 70 
Box Tortoise, 101 
Dobson Fly, 28 
Dragon Fly, 24 
Fish, 50-52 
Frog, 54, 55 
Monarch Butterfly, 40 
Mosquito, 60 
Moth, 32 

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, 146 
Wasp, 10 

F 

Feelers, 47 
Feet, 128 
Feldspar, 184,186 
Fish, 124,139,187,188 
Sun, 49-52 
Flicker, 66 
Flour, Rock, 184 
Flowers, 157-161 
Fly, 23 

Dobson, 26-28 
Dragon, 23-25 

Flycatcher, Scissor-tailed, 144-148 
Flying Mammal, 118 
Fog, 193 
Fossil, 188-189 
Frog, 78 
Bull, 53-57 
Fungus, 15,18 

G 

Garter Snake, 76-79 
Geese, 152-154 
Gila Monster, 87 
Gopher, Pocket, 105-108,113 
Striped, 113-115 

Grasshopper, 65, 66, 71,104,134, 
141,142,146 
Grass seeds, 139 

H 

Harvest Mouse, 109-112,115 
Hawk, 147,148 
Hawk Moth, 29-33 
Honey, 67,158 
Humming-bird Moth, 29-33 


I 

Insect, 25, 71, 78, 92, 98,101,102, 
127,134,138,139,142,188 
See also: 

Ants, Bees, Beetle, Butter¬ 
flies, Cecropia Moth, Cricket, 
Daddy Longlegs, Dobson Fly, 
Dragon Fly, Grasshopper, 
Hawk Moth or Humming¬ 
bird Moth, Monarch Butter¬ 
fly, Mosquito, Parasol Ants, 
Viceroy Butterfly 
K 

Kingfisher, Belted, 123-126 
L 

Larva, 12 

Live oak, 161-164 

Lizard, Collared, 84-87 

M 

Mammal, 117-118 
Flying, 118 
Meteors, 201-203 
Milk, 139,170 
Pigeon,139 
Milkweed, 40 
Mocking bird, 128,141 
Monarch Butterfly, 38-41 
Monster, Gila, 87 
Moon, 197-200, 204 
Mosquito, 23, 58-62,117 
Moss, 15 
Moth, 117,144 
Cecropia, 34-37,179 
Hawk, 29-33 
Humming-bird, 29-33 
Mouse, Harvest, 109-112,115 
Mud, 128,130,188 
Mulberry Tree, 179 

N 

Nectar, 158-160 
Nest 

Bank Swallow, 130 
Bluebird, 132 
Cliff Swallow, 128,130 
Dove, Turtle, 138 
Harvest Mouse, 109,110 
Kingfisher, 126 


INDEX 


211 


Parasol Ants, 13-19 
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, 146 
Verdin, 149,150 
Wasp, 7-11 
Nettles, 165-168 
North Star, 205-207 
O 

Oak, Live, 161-164 
Ocean,175,187,188,193 
Oil, 62 

Opossum, 91-96 

P 

Parasol Ants, 13-19 
Pigeon,139 
Milk, 139 

Pincers, 26, 45, 46, 47, 72, 74 
Pocket Gopher, 105-108,113 
Pointers, 206, 207 
Pollen, 158,159 
Potato, 172-174 
Poverty Weed, 147 
Pupa, 12,32,33, 37,41 

Q 

Queen Ants, 17,18 
R 

Rain, 190 

Rattlesnake, 70 

Rayon, 178-180 

Rings, 163,164 

Rocks, 184,186-188, 201, 203 

Rock Flour, 184 

S 

Sac, 74,166 
Salt, 175,176 
Sap,168,170,175,176 
Seeds, 139,158,169-171 
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, 144-148 
Scorpion, 72-75 
Shooting Star, 201 
Shrike, 141 
Silk, 36,178,179,180 
Silkworm, 179 
Skunk, 97-100 
Smart Weed, 166,167 
Snails, 187,188 
Snake, 76, 79,131 
Garter, 76-79 
Rattle, 70 


Snapping Turtle, 1, 81 
Soil, 183 
Spider, 65-68, 72 
Black Widow, 69-71 
Web, 35,150 
Star, 204 
North, 205-207 
Shooting, 201 
Steam, 191-192 
Stick-tight, 170 
Striped Gopher, 113-115 
Spermophile, 113 
Sugar, 175-177 
Beet, 176,177 
Cane, 175,176 
Sunfish, 49-52 
Swallow 
Bank, 130 
Cliff, 127-130 
Swimmerets, 46 

T 

Tadpole, 53-57 

Teeth, 77, 83, 86, 93,102,107,116, 
117 

Terrapin, 81 
Tortoise, Box, 80-83,101 
Tree, 188 

Live Oak, 161-164 
Mulberry, 179 
Tubercles, 34 
Turtle, Snapping, 1, 80, 81 
Turtledove, 136-140 

V 

Verdin, 149-151 
Viceroy Butterfly, 40 

W 

Wasps, 7-12,71,165 
Water, 190 
Web, 35, 69,150 
Weeds, 146,165-167 
Weed, Poverty, 147 
Seeds, 139 
Smart, 166,167 
Wiggle-tail, 58-62 
Worm, Silk, 179 
Wood, 163,178,180 
Woodpecker, 132 




















































































































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